Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Montgomery, Senior Lecturer in General Practice, University of Western Australia

As of this week, everyone with a Medicare card is eligible for Medicare-funded telehealth. That means you can have a consultation with your GP, psychologist and other health providers via video or phone, rather than going in.

This should help with social distancing – a core weapon in our community’s fight to contain this epidemic.

Some but not all health care can safely be shifted online. But it can be difficult to know when it’s OK to skip the in-person visit. Here are some pointers to get you going.

Read more: All Australians will be able to access telehealth under new $1.1 billion coronavirus program

What you can do via telehealth

There’s a saying in medicine that “history is 80% of diagnosis”. By “history”, we mean the things our patients tell us; fortunately, video and telephone connections convey your voices and stories well.

So for issues where doctors and patients mainly need to speak, and where the risk of serious illness is low, telehealth consults are a good option. Evidence backs this up, finding fairly satisfied doctors and patients – and sometimes even cost or time savings.

I’m most comfortable using telehealth with patients I know well, and when we are managing long-standing health issues. For example:

• routine chronic disease management, especially where the condition is fairly stable – for example conditions such as diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure

• writing repeat prescriptions for medicines used in long-term illnesses – like the examples above, or tablets for contraception, stomach acid or chronic pain

• exploring mental health issues

• discussing diet and physical activity

• writing referral letters.

Some conditions can also be monitored remotely. In particular, many patients with high blood pressure can safely measure this using a machine at home. This is recommended in blood pressure guidelines, as it’s actually more reliable than clinic readings.

But home blood pressure monitoring won’t be a solution for everyone. It needs careful technique, and also enough money to buy a machine.

Read more: Blood pressure targets – what does the new guideline say and how low should you go?

Some simple short-term illnesses might also be managed via telehealth, as long as the risk of anything serious going on seems low. Examples could include straightforward urinary tract or upper respiratory tract infections.

But there is a worrisome overlap in symptoms between common viral infections and the early symptoms of COVID-19. Guidelines are being written to help GPs assess, over telehealth, who needs to simply isolate, who needs testing, and who needs to go to hospital.

What you need to see a doctor for

Sometimes a physical examination is important. There are all sorts of presentations in which I might need to listen to your heart or lungs, or feel your abdomen, or take your temperature if you don’t have a thermometer at home. This is especially the case when symptoms are new.

Photographs are tricky. I can’t expect patients to be able to describe or photograph a changing skin lesion well enough for me to make decisions. (Often these are benign, but I’d hate to miss a skin cancer.)

Read more: Health Check: do I need a skin cancer check?

There are procedures that can’t be done via telehealth. Excising skin lesions, taking swabs and smears, inserting long-acting contraceptive devices, giving injections – these simply don’t happen “virtually”.

Particularly important right now are flu vaccinations: while these offer no protection against coronavirus, they may stop the dangerous “double whammy” of getting influenza and coronavirus together.

Read more: The ‘dreaded duo’: Australia will likely hit a peak in coronavirus cases around flu season

What you might need to put off

Some routine checkups and screening tests, in low-risk people without symptoms, might simply best be put off until this pandemic settles. But it’s hard to generalise. If in doubt, ask a doctor who knows you well.

Bookings, prescriptions and blood tests

When booking an appointment, don’t simply book a face-to-face appointment out of habit. Hopefully reception staff will offer the telehealth option, but this is all new, and it can’t hurt for you to raise the idea too.

When GPs aren’t sure whether telehealth is appropriate, we can begin with a telehealth conversation, then swap to a traditional consultation if needed.

Prescriptions and blood test or imaging referrals are currently awkward via telehealth. I can mail non-urgent prescriptions and requests to patients, pharmacies or other providers.

For urgent prescriptions, we’re using a messy combination of phone calls, faxes or emails to get instructions to pharmacists quickly, and then mailing the originals.

Fingers crossed, there will soon be reforms allowing purely digital prescribing.

Just an interim measure for the pandemic?

Medicare has previously been very strict about only funding GP consultations when they happen face-to-face. The shift to funding telehealth has been forced by the coronavirus pandemic; so far the government is promising telehealth funding to late September.

Like patients, not all practices are ready for video consultations. Webcams, like facemasks and hand sanitiser, are hard to find. And we’re still learning which video services tick all the boxes for function and privacy.

At a better time in history, we’d confine telehealth consultations to the obviously safe consultations, and do all the other ones face-to-face. But we currently need to balance the risks of forgoing some physical examination and procedures against the risks of potential exposure to coronavirus.

Research evidence on telehealth isn’t much help, because it wasn’t done in the coronavirus era. Instead, we need to be as safe and wise as we can, and learn as we go.

I hope we’ll be able to lay the foundation for telehealth not just as an emergency measure, but as an enduring feature of general practice – complementing rather than replacing face-to-face consultations.

Read more: Is your mental health deteriorating during the coronavirus pandemic? Here’s what to look out for

– ref. What can you use a telehealth consult for and when should you physically visit your GP? – https://theconversation.com/what-can-you-use-a-telehealth-consult-for-and-when-should-you-physically-visit-your-gp-135046

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristy Hess, Associate Professor (Communication), Deakin University

The coronavirus pandemic has spawned a lexicon of its own. We have had to quickly incorporate words like “self-isolation” and “social distancing” into our everyday language to navigate it.

“Essential service” is another one. In fact, it is one of the most commonly used and somewhat confusing keywords to emerge from our leaders’ press conferences. This is because it has taken on new significance and is being defined in particular ways.

So what constitutes essential news and information services?

Small newspapers closing and going digital-only

News Corporation has announced it will suspend the printing of 60 community newspapers in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia from next week. They will become digital-only products.

News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller said in a statement

the impact of COVID-19 on the community print titles came on top of the toll on media from the refusal of digital platforms to pay publishers to use their content.

The News Corp statement is one of several such announcements in recent weeks as dozens of local and community newspapers have closed across the country, from the Torres Strait to Gawler, South Australia, and many more in the US, UK and New Zealand.

This news has barely made the headlines amid the coronavirus crisis, and there has been little talk of a rescue package for newspapers that have shut their doors in these unprecedented times.

What qualifies as ‘essential’ information?

As researchers undertaking an ARC Linkage project on media innovation in partnership with Country Press Australia, our attention is now focused on understanding what qualifies as an “essential” news and information service.

We are also studying the lengths to which Australians are prepared to go to protect their media from the economic devastation stemming from the coronavirus.

If newspapers are to innovate and flourish beyond the pandemic, they need to be acknowledged and supported as an essential service.

Yet, there are mixed messages about what might be considered “essential information” platforms. For the government, essential information seems to be limited to what it tells an elite group of journalists at Canberra press conferences and what it posts on its “COVID-19 essential information” website.

Read more: After a dark decade for Australia’s regional newspapers, a hopeful light flickers

At the same time, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is sending mixed messages about the value of social media. On one hand, the government has launched a massive social media advertising campaign on coronavirus; on the other, he is saying platforms such as Twitter are “breeding grounds for gossip and nonsense”.

This inconsistency and confusion only adds to the uncertainty about what the government considers “essential information” channels that people should go to for reliable news.

What can be done to protect local newspapers?

What we already know is that local journalism (especially newspapers) matters to the public. And right now, local audiences need professionally produced news that is socially and geographically relevant.

On a national scale, “essential coronavirus information” is available via government websites and major news outlets.

But if you live in regional or remote Australia, you need news on the local businesses and services that have been affected by the virus and infection rates specific to your patch. Local papers also deliver stories about how friends and neighbours are coping and supporting each other.

Read more: Without local papers, regional voices would struggle to be heard

Intervention is needed to protect these newspapers from disappearing altogether. Already, there have been calls for the government to tap into an existing $40 million innovation fund to support small and regional publishers through the crisis.

We also suggest the government should consider making newspaper subscriptions (print and digital) tax-deductible.

As small businesses, many local newspapers will be eligible for existing tax relief such as the JobKeeper allowances designed to keep their employees in work.

But our early research indicates there are other ways for governments and major companies to get behind regional and rural newspapers and deem them essential services.

Government advertising spending has dropped dramatically in the past five years across country newspapers. This had represented a major chunk of their revenue. Instead, government advertising funds are often redirected to social media with little regard or thought about the consequences in the wider media ecology.

Read more: The closure of AAP is yet another blow to public interest journalism in Australia

Such communication strategies overlook the fact the local printed newspaper is still an essential service for many in local communities, particularly the elderly who are arguably most at risk from COVID-19.

Protecting these news outlets should be at the forefront of any government communication plan when there is a vital need to keep people informed and connected, and fake news and misinformation is rife.

Meanwhile, Australian media and communication academics are also sending mixed messages. They are calling for the survival of public interest journalism while taking research funding from the predatory news platforms Google and Facebook, which are widely recognised for destroying the health of news ecosystems throughout the world.

In Australia, two parliamentary inquiries and a landmark report by the ACCC and News Corporation have all concluded that Facebook and Google are no friends to Australia’s small newspapers.

Yet strangely, these juggernauts are being positioned as saviours of local news.

Social dimension of local papers

If coronavirus has an upside, it is reminding us of the essential importance of social order and connection at both institutional and individual levels.

One of the most prominent images from the coronavirus coverage in Italy over the past few weeks has been the obituary and death notices in the Lombardy region, highlighting the continued central role the local media plays in important rituals and life events.

The newspapers under threat during the crisis connect people well beyond matters of politics and public interest.

Our research shows that, in fact, it is often the social dimension of these newspapers that matters most. They are also bridges to the local advertisers deeply affected by this crisis, such as retail shops, cafes and restaurants. This matters to people in regional communities – and it’s time we acknowledged that.

– ref. Local newspapers are an ‘essential service’. They deserve a government rescue package, too – https://theconversation.com/local-newspapers-are-an-essential-service-they-deserve-a-government-rescue-package-too-135323

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Blay, Research Fellow – workforce, Western Sydney University

The number of people going to hospital with the coronavirus is expected to rise, putting a strain on our health and aged care services and their workforce.

Australian undergraduate student nurses and those health workers here on visas from overseas are being encouraged to work as nursing assistants during this COVID-19 pandemic.

This is in keeping with the worldwide trend of employing more nursing assistants in health and aged care services.

Read more: Supplies needed for coronavirus healthcare workers: 89 million masks, 30 million gowns, 2.9 million litres of hand sanitiser. A month.

But questions remain about the differences in training of nursing assistants compared to regulated nurses (registered and enrolled nurses) and the tasks they are able to undertake.

An unregulated workforce

As nursing assistants are unregulated, their training and clinical practice is not controlled by professional bodies or governments.

Training is certainly recommended, but it is not compulsory, and content between training organisations can be different. Therefore, nursing assistants working in hospitals and residential aged care facilities may have completed an on-line course, a Certificate III qualification, completed one year of undergraduate nursing studies or have a nursing qualification from overseas. They may have had no training at all.

Visa holders can work as a nursing assistant while their overseas nursing qualifications are being assessed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.

It is these last two examples, undergraduate nursing students in Australia or overseas trained nurses, that the Prime Minister Scott Morrison recommends organisations seek to recruit.

What a nursing assistant can do

Nursing assistants can work under the supervision of a registered or enrolled nurse to help provide basic nursing care such as showering, hair, skin and mouth care. They can assist with activities essential for daily living including helping people with dressing and feeding.

They may also perform simple wound dressings, transport stable patients or residents between beds or wards, and undertake nursing observations such as pulse, temperature and respiratory rates.

Using student nurses and current visa holders seems like a potential solution to a possible staffing crisis. But is it?

For student nurses, there is considerable variation in the course structure offered by universities, who each write their own curricula within the boundaries of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council.

This means not all students will have had the same clinical experience or completed the same content by a given point in their course. Therefore they may not have equivalent knowledge or skills before working as a nursing assistant.

Patients at risk?

This variation may be a problem and there is a lot of evidence that a higher number of unregulated nurses and a lower number of regulated nurses increases the risk of patient infections and other adverse events in hospitals) and the aged care sector.

For example, nursing people with an infectious disease requires scrupulous attention to detail and meticulous use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to prevent further spread.

There are correct ways to apply and remove a mask and gown. A tiny slip-up can put the wearer and others at risk of contamination.

Working as nursing assistants can provide undergraduate students with valuable clinical experience. Our recent research shows most nursing activities performed by nursing assistants are those personal care activities described above.

But we found around one-third of tasks they performed require a higher level of skill and knowledge and should therefore be performed by regulated nurses.

This may explain why the rate of adverse events increases with more unregulated nurses. With the projected increase in patients who may need intensive care, experienced qualified nurses who can work without supervision will be needed.

Can retired nurses help?

Some have recommended recruiting retired nurses to help staff intensive care units. Again, this is fraught with problems.

Working nurses are ageing – the average age is about 45 – with two out of five aged 50 and over. So most retired nurses are likely in their 60s or older.

Read more: In the time of coronavirus, donating blood is more essential than ever

The two age groups – the over 50s and the over 60s – are precisely those at risk of a severe response to the coronavirus, which could make staffing shortages and the demand for beds much worse.

Perhaps a more effective and sustainable solution would be to use Australian Defence Force nurses who are all regulated, presumably fit and who have been prepared to deal with emerging crises at short notice.

Australia is clearly going to need innovative ways to ease pressure on the health workforce over the coming months. If we’re going to recruit student nurses and current visa holders, we need to make sure all have been trained and assessed to the same standard.

– ref. Using nursing assistants to fill coronavirus gaps brings risks if they’re not up to the job – https://theconversation.com/using-nursing-assistants-to-fill-coronavirus-gaps-brings-risks-if-theyre-not-up-to-the-job-134242

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Haiqing Yu, Associate Professor, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University

China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the global power play.

China played a decisive role in combating the invisible enemy. Chinese officials and academics are taking this opportunity to rescript the narrative and place China as the new world leader.

In the quest for this leadership, China seems to be playing the game of “white face” (friendly face) and “red face” (hostile face). Similar to the Western concept of good cop/bad cop, white face and red face uses seemingly opposing actions to achieve a singular goal.

The red face is Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman who suggested the virus originated in the US and was brought to Wuhan by American soldiers.

The white face is providing medical supplies to countries now battling the pandemic, gestures of goodwill described as “mask diplomacy” or “medical diplomacy”.

By understanding the context for these donations, we can understand a lot about how China embeds symbolism within its soft power diplomacy.

Guarding life

Chinese people have a long history of wearing masks as protection from disease, chemical warfare, pollution, and severe weather. As early as the 13th century, court servants would cover their noses and mouths with a silk cloth when bringing food to the emperor.

As China increasingly encountered foreign powers through Treaty Ports at the turn of the 20th century, disease control became a critical concern. Despite the long legacy of traditional medicine, China was seen as an unhygienic place by the Western occupiers of these ports.

China’s opening to the West in 1978 led to a greater awareness of hygiene. The Chinese word for hygiene weisheng (literally “guarding life”) was incorporated by health reformers in numerous applications, from wooden disposable chopsticks to toilet paper.

In China, not wearing masks in the current health crisis is seen as unhygienic, irresponsible, and even transgressive. Punitive measures are taken by authorities, with non-mask-wearers publicly shamed and humiliated on Chinese social media.

In the West, masks have been widely viewed with suspicion. The official advice from Australian health authorities is if you are not sick, don’t wear masks.

This has lead to anxiety and discontent among Chinese Australians, frustrated by what they see as bad advice. The general public attitude toward mask wearers compounds the problem as Chinese Australians are unfairly targeted with racist slurs.

Read more: Do homemade masks work? Sometimes. But leave the design to the experts

International diplomacy

At the height of the Wuhan outbreak, government, private companies and individual citizens in Japan donated thousands of masks. But more significant than the masks was the symbolism. Emblazoned on cargo boxes from the Japan Youth Development Association were Chinese characters reading “Lands apart, sky shared”, a line from an ancient Chinese poem.

A month later, the Jack Ma Foundation reciprocated with a large donation of masks to Japan, with a quote from the same poem: “Stretching before you and me are the same mountain ranges; let’s face the same wind and rain together.”

Millions of masks and thousands of testing kits are being sent overseas, coordinated and endorsed by Chinese government organisations and taking place at the government-to-government level; by the private sector through companies and charity foundations; and by individuals helping their overseas friends.

Mask diplomacy is part of China’s new dual level power play: aiding to foreign countries to regain face and demonstrate its role as a responsible global power; and sharing conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus to attack the opponent.

Read more: Coronavirus is a breeding ground for conspiracy theories – here’s why that’s a serious problem

China is being aided in this messaging by inefficiency of the US in handling the crisis. By finger pointing at the US, some say China is hoping to “distract from domestic government incompetence.”

This effort to rewrite the virus narrative through mask diplomacy is a strategic gambit to claim the moral high ground and assert international power.

Changing faces

Perhaps a clue to what is now unfolding comes from the world of theatre.

In Chinese Sichuan opera, the performer magically changes masks. A skilled performer can accomplish ten mask changes in 20 seconds. This is one of the great accomplishments of Chinese culture, part of its soft power arsenal. The term used in Chinese, bianlian (literally “changing face”), however, is also a synonym for suddenly turning hostile.

China may have dodged a bullet. But if the pandemic spirals further out of control, China will have a lot more work to do to deliver its charm offensive.

The next few months will be crucial. Much of the global leadership in this global warfare will depend on the US, with its own president appearing to change face at any moment.

Power in the age of global contagion requires more than the dual faces of white and red. The world needs healing, and so the Chinese government will need to carefully moderate its propaganda. Triumphalism over the success of its own military-style control strategies and finger pointing at others may evoke blowback in the theatre of geopolitics.

– ref. Masking power in the age of contagion: the two faces of China in the wake of coronavirus – https://theconversation.com/masking-power-in-the-age-of-contagion-the-two-faces-of-china-in-the-wake-of-coronavirus-135035

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ryan Ko, Chair Professor and Director of Cyber Security, The University of Queensland

Recently Facebook, Reddit, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube committed to removing coronavirus-related misinformation from their platforms.

COVID-19 is being described as the first major pandemic of the social media age. In troubling times, social media helps distribute vital knowledge to the masses. Unfortunately, this comes with myriad misinformation, much of which is spread through social media bots.

These fake accounts are common on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. They have one goal: to spread fear and fake news.

We witnessed this in the 2016 United States presidential elections, with arson rumours in the bushfire crisis, and we’re seeing it again in relation to the coronavirus pandemic.

Read more: Bushfires, bots and arson claims: Australia flung in the global disinformation spotlight

Busy busting bots

The exact scale of misinformation is difficult to measure. But its global presence can be felt through snapshots of Twitter bot involvement in COVID-19-related hashtag activity.

Bot Sentinel is a website that uses machine learning to identify potential Twitter bots, using a score and rating. According to the site, on March 26 bot accounts were responsible for 828 counts of #coronavirus, 544 counts of #COVID19 and 255 counts of #Coronavirus hashtags within 24 hours.

These hashtags respectively took the 1st, 3rd and 7th positions of all top-trolled Twitter hashtags.

It’s important to note the actual number of coronavirus-related bot tweets are likely much higher, as Bot Sentinel only recognises hashtag terms (such as #coronavirus), and wouldn’t pick up on “coronavirus”, “COVID19” or “Coronavirus”.

How are bots created?

Bots are usually managed by automated programs called bot “campaigns”, and these are controlled by human users. The actual process of creating such a campaign is relatively simple. There are several websites that teach people how to do this for “marketing” purposes. In the underground hacker economy on the dark web, such services are available for hire.

While it’s difficult to attribute bots to the humans controlling them, the purpose of bot campaigns is obvious: create social disorder by spreading misinformation. This can increase public anxiety, frustration and anger against authorities in certain situations.

A 2019 report published by researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute revealed a worrying trend in organised “social media manipulation by governments and political parties”. They reported:

Evidence of organised social media manipulation campaigns which have taken place in 70 countries, up from 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries in 2017. In each country, there is at least one political party or government agency using social media to shape public attitudes domestically.

The modus operandi of bots

Typically, in the context of COVID-19 messages, bots would spread misinformation through two main techniques.

The first involves content creation, wherein bots start new posts with pictures that validate or mirror existing worldwide trends. Examples include pictures of shopping baskets filled with food, or hoarders emptying supermarket shelves. This generates anxiety and confirms what people are reading from other sources.

The second technique involves content augmentation. In this, bots latch onto official government feeds and news sites to sow discord. They retweet alarming tweets or add false comments and information in a bid to stoke fear and anger among users. It’s common to see bots talking about a “frustrating event”, or some social injustice faced by their “loved ones”.

The example below shows a Twitter post from Queensland Health’s official twitter page, followed by comments from accounts named “Sharon” and “Sara” which I have identified as bot accounts. Many real users reading Sara’s post would undoubtedly feel a sense of injustice on behalf of her “mum”.

While we can’t be 100% certain these are bot accounts, many factors point to this very likely being the case. Our ability to accurately identify bots will get better as machine learning algorithms in programs such as Bot Sentinel improve.

How to spot a bot

To learn the characteristics of a bot, let’s take a closer look Sharon’s and Sara’s accounts.

Both profiles lack human uniqueness, and display some telltale signs they may be bots:

• they have no followers

• they only recently joined Twitter

• they have no last names, and have alphanumeric handles (such as Sara89629382)

• they have only tweeted a few times

• their posts have one theme: spreading alarmist comments

• they mostly follow news sites, government authorities, or human users who are highly influential in a certain subject (in this case, virology and medicine).

My investigation into Sharon revealed the bot had attempted to exacerbate anger on a news article about the federal government’s coronavirus response.

The language: “Health can’t wait. Economic (sic) can” indicates a potentially non-native English speaker.

It seems Sharon was trying to stoke the flames of public anger by calling out “bad decisions”.

Looking through Sharon’s tweets, I discovered Sharon’s friend “Mel”, another bot with its own programmed agenda.

What was concerning was that a human user was engaging with Mel.

You can help tackle misinformation

Currently, it’s simply too hard to attribute the true source of bot-driven misinformation campaigns. This can only be achieved with the full cooperation of social media companies.

The motives of a bot campaign can range from creating mischief to exercising geopolitical control. And some researchers still can’t agree on what exactly constitutes a “bot”.

But one thing is for sure: Australia needs to develop legislation and mechanisms to detect and stop these automated culprits. Organisations running legitimate social media campaigns should dedicate time to using a bot detection tool to weed out and report fake accounts.

And as a social media user in the age of the coronavirus, you can also help by reporting suspicious accounts. The last thing we need is malicious parties making an already worrying crisis worse.

Read more: You can join the effort to expose Twitter bots

– ref. Meet ‘Sara’, ‘Sharon’ and ‘Mel’: why people spreading coronavirus anxiety on Twitter might actually be bots – https://theconversation.com/meet-sara-sharon-and-mel-why-people-spreading-coronavirus-anxiety-on-twitter-might-actually-be-bots-134802

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martina Doblin, Senior Research Fellow, Plant Functional Biology & Climate Change, University of Technology Sydney

As the climate warms, the land we use for growing energy-intensive crops such as wheat and corn is becoming less productive. We need to find ways to feed the earth’s growing population that isn’t so burdensome on the environment.

One potential solution is to cultivate microalgae – microscopic aquatic organisms that are packed with nutrients. Microalgae are single-celled organisms that look like tiny pills and taste a bit like grass.

They are relatively easy to cultivate and have several advantages over animal and plant protein.

1. Less environmental impact

Algae don’t require pesticides to sustain their productivity. Algae can also be grown in wastewaters (water that has been used in the home or in some industrial process), taking up nutrients and other dissolved substances into their biomass. This results in fewer contaminants being released into the environment and less pollution in our waterways.

2. It can be grown year-round

High growth and reproduction rates mean microalgae can double their biomass in as little as one to three days, depending on the time of the year. While their growth rate is slower in winter, they are not limited to a growing season, such as plants, or a long maturation period, such as animals.

This means microalgae produce more biomass on a given area of land per year, than animals or plants.

High growth rates also mean frequent harvesting. This makes microalgal cultures more resilient to sudden or extreme weather events, where production losses may be only several days of growth rather than the entire annual crop.

Read more: Micro solutions for a macro problem: How marine algae could help feed the world

3. It has more protein

Algae produce more protein than plant-based foods, including soybean and pulse legumes. While algae produce 3.5-13 tonnes of protein per hectare per year, soybean and pulse legumes produce 0.5-1.8 tonnes of protein per hectare per year.

The higher growth rate of microalgae and ability to produce their own food from the sun, means microalgal protein yields are more than 100 times greater than animal-based proteins, including beef, eggs and dairy (0.01 – 0.23 tonnes per hectare per year).

4. Farms can be built anywhere

Algae production systems don’t require arable land. They comprise either open ponds or closed vessels with a light source, known as photobioreactors. The systems can be built almost anywhere, including non-productive land or in the sea.

Open ponds are shallow (between 10 and 50 cm deep), and the algae culture is gently circulated by a paddlewheel. Closed photobioreactors consist of an array of tubes or flat panels, through which algae is circulated. Both types of production systems can be modified to suit the environment.

5. It doesn’t require fresh water

Thousands of marine and estuarine microalgal species grow best in seawater rather than freshwater. This would reduce our reliance on fresh water for food production.

6. It’s nutritious

Algae have long been recognised for their nutritional properties, forming a vital food source in human diets since as early as 14,000 BC. Over the last few decades, microalgae have been used in vitamin supplements and health food products, including protein bars and powders, green smoothies and Omega-3 capsules.

Microalgae contain proteins, fats, carbohydrates and other nutritional components that have wide potential application in the food industry. For example, algae have a broad array of amino acids that support human growth and development; some are comparable with the levels in egg, soy and wheat protein.

Read more: How hacking photosynthesis could fight deforestation and famine

To date, microalgae have successfully been incorporated into a range of edible products to increase their nutritional value, including yoghurts, biscuits, bread and pasta. Manufacturers have been able to swap plant for algal-protein by simply introducing it as a powder into production streams.

Apart from adding nutrients, microalgae have other properties that facilitate their incorporation into foods, including emulsifying, foaming, gelation, and absorption of fat and water.

Using microalgae in emulsions allows for a decrease in the percentage of oil, showing promise for their potential use in low-fat products. When added to desserts as colouring agents, the cell structure in microalgae protects pigments from thermal degradation during processing, enabling foods to maintain their vibrancy.

7. It’s cruelty-free

Algae can be harvested by sedimentation, flotation or filtration, with not an abattoir or live exporter in sight.

8. It can be used in sustainable products

Microalgae are increasingly being used as sustainable components of other products, including cosmetics, nutraceuticals, industrial enzymes and bioplastics, and as a biofuel to replace fossil fuels in niche markets.

Many microalgae have high levels of palmitic acid. This acid is also the principal component of palm oil – a widely used oil in food production which drives mass deforestation and loss of animal habitat. Replacing palm oil with microalgae would reduce reliance on this unsustainable industry.

Read more: Explainer: what are algal biofuels?

9. An opportunity for developing regions

The low-tech, basic infrastructure needed for microalgal farming could provide economic opportunities for developing regions. For example, research has shown a number of African nations have suitable land, labor and climatic conditions to grow microalgae as a source of bioenergy.

Where to now?

Microalgae are being produced commercially in Australia, including at Hutt Lagoon in Western Australia, the world’s largest microalgae production plant. There, the alga Dunaliella salina is grown to produce beta-carotene, a food pigment and source of vitamin A.

Elsewhere in Australia, microalgae is grown to produce Spirulina, which is marketed as a health food. Researchers are developing the use of microalgae further, including as a feed supplement for beef cattle.

But the current range of microalgae products grown in Australia is limited. The nation has a suitable climate and the technology; now it needs growers and manufacturers.

Government support is required to enable the agricultural and manufacturing sectors to create algae-based products – current stimulus spending provides such an opportunity. This would not only create new jobs, but enable Australian businesses to become more resilient into the future.

– ref. More protein and good for the planet: 9 reasons we should be eating microalgae – https://theconversation.com/more-protein-and-good-for-the-planet-9-reasons-we-should-be-eating-microalgae-124591

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

How would you feel if you were having a Zoom meeting with your accountant and they asked “how would you like to save more than $5,000 in income tax over the next six months?”

While probably a bit sceptical (did I hear right? Maybe this technology is faulty? What’s the catch? Surely this is too good to be true?) you might be intrigued. You might even turn up the volume to make sure you hear the next bit.

What about if they followed up with, “It’s completely legal. The Australian government will be picking up the tab as part of the stimulus packages! Plus, you can do it mostly risk-free. But you do have to rearrange your financial affairs a bit, and deal with some bureaucratic hurdles.”

What the accountant would be referring to is a generous incentive that is on offer now over the next six months.

It is linked to the decision to temporarily allow the early release of A$10,000 in super this financial year and $10,000 the next.

When parliament approved the Coronavirus Economic Response Package Omnibus Bill 2020 last week, they put no new restrictions on how people could contribute into super.

This means that it’s possible to voluntarily contribute $10,000 of your pre-tax income into super over the next three months, and also apply to withdraw a $10,000 lump sum from super tax-free at some point before June 30.

Read more: Scalable without limit: how the government plans to get coronavirus support into our hands quickly

You still end up with $10,000 in your pocket. But if you contribute through a salary sacrifice arrangement with your employer and stay within the concessional contributions limits, your voluntary contributions will be taxed at 15% rather than your marginal personal tax rate.

When you pull out the funds from super, the withdrawal is tax free. And, you will be able to do the same thing again between July 1 and late September.

In a working paper released by the ANU’s Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, we described these kinds of situations – where people assume a different legal form in order to receive a lower marginal tax rate – as “tax arbitrage”. They are completely legal, and widespread.

Like other tax arbitrage opportunities, there are sizeable tax savings available from the pursuing of the super equivalent of the Hokey Pokey.

This chart illustrates the sums involved.

Potential tax saving in one specific scenario associated with salary sacrificing up to $10,000 into super and withdrawing it in the same financial year

It applies to a very specific scenario: a working age individual who is on 9.5% compulsory super contributions, has an annual salary below $158,000, has made no previous voluntary contributions to super in 2019-20, and who elects to make a “simultaneous” (within 2019-20) pre-tax contribution to and withdrawal of the maximum possible $10,000 from super over the next three months.

It suggests that, as long as an individual in this situation has an annual income of approximately $30,000 or more, there is a prospective tax saving from rearranging his or her financial affairs over the next three months.

Read more: The key to the success of the $130 billion wage subsidy is retrospective paid work

The tax savings can be risk-free, if that’s what you want. If you were worried about the stock market falling further and taking away your contributions to super with it, you can direct your super fund to hold all new contributions purely as cash.

In all, its not a bad return for three (or six) month’s efforts – especially as it results purely from a change in legal fiction rather than any change in underlying economic activity.

Who can do it?

As always with these kinds of arrangements, the devil is in the detail, but there is a lot we already know.

First, the arrangements are targeted at those who have been adversely impacted by the coronavirus. On or after January 1, 2020 working hours (or turnover for sole traders) have to have been fallen by at least 20%.

And it benefits those willing to embrace the bureaucratic hurdles (or outsource the embracing to their accountant). Consistent with Australia’s self-assessment tax system, the onus is on the applicant to certify that they qualify. The Tax Office will then make a determination that the funds be released by the super fund.

Read more: Australia’s $130 billion JobKeeper payment: what the experts think

There appears to a fair bit of discretion left to the ATO as to what impacts from coronavirus will be considered sufficient.

One thing is that isn’t clear is what the base period for comparison is, although some examples provided by treasury compare outcomes over a month in 2020 against the average over the six months at the end of 2019.

It seems quite straightforward if your workplace has cut back your hours or the business you own has had its trade (say) halved, but it is less clear cut if you have voluntarily scaled back your hours because of childcare or if you have returned from working overseas because of the virus.

The second key condition is you need to be fortunate enough to hold on to a job providing you with taxable income (or if you are self-employed, generating pre-tax income) of up to $10,000 over the next three, and maybe six, months. The new JobKeeper wage subsidy will help.

And you need to be able to handle the “cash flow” gap – between when you start salary sacrificing income (which reduces take-home pay) and when your super fund is able to release the income to you.

Read more: JobKeeper payment: how will it work, who will miss out and how to get it?

But sole traders whose business is suspended and are ceasing earning income may not be able to do so. And salary sacrifice isn’t an option if you become unemployed and move on to a government welfare payment which doesn’t allow salary sacrifice.

The third key condition is you need to have enough assets in super to be able to withdraw $10,000 per quarter for the next six months. You can only make one application for an Australian Tax Office determination between now and June 30, and one application between July 1 and September 25.

What are we meant to make of it?

Taking it all together, a (probably unintended) consequence of the super changes has been to create a sizeable tax loophole for those who are relatively mildly impacted by the coronavirus, still earning taxable income, and have the financial capacity to salary sacrifice into super.

While it might initially sound like a niche opportunity, it could be of interest to a significant number of the estimated six million recipients of the JobKeeper payment.

The people who benefit will probably welcome their windfall. Some might, quite reasonably, point out that they should be expected to pay only the minimal tax legally applicable. They might even invoke the spirit of Kerry Packer.

At a system-wide level, though, this sort of tax planning is grossly unfair and leads to a tax system that is less efficient, more complex and less sustainable.

Read more: At last, an answer to the $5 billion question: who gets the imputation cheques Labor will take away?

Income tax is easily the most important source of Commonwealth government revenue. Loopholes in it feed through into company tax reveune through refundable imputation (something Labor tried to wind back in the 2019 election). There is no inheritance tax. And the main consumption tax is set at a low rate, is far from comprehensive and doesn’t fund Commonwealth government spending.

We ought to worry about actions that erode the collection of personal income tax.

The policy process has moved astonishingly quickly in the past three weeks. There were always going to be mistakes, and during a recession its often wise for decision-makers to not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

But equally, we must safeguard against details the objectively bad.

Now we’ll see how the government responds to error.

– ref. The government opens a coronavirus super loophole: it’s legal to put your money in, take it out, and save on tax – https://theconversation.com/the-government-opens-a-coronavirus-super-loophole-its-legal-to-put-your-money-in-take-it-out-and-save-on-tax-135306

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW

Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a paper written in late March to outline the rationale for a short, sharp lockdown. The full version is below.

The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented and may have long lasting global effects.

Until a vaccine is available, we have four main measures at our disposal:

1. identifying every case rapidly with extensive testing, and isolating cases.
2. tracking and quarantine of contacts
3. travel restrictions
4. social distancing (including lockdown) to reduce contact (and therefore spread of infection) between people.

Unlike countries such as South Korea, Australia has taken a slow trickle approach of phased, targeted restrictions to reduce social contact along with continued restricted testing.

We are in a partial lockdown state now, but it has been gradual. Different restrictions have been added on a rolling basis over a few weeks now, with schools still open. This is more of a slow trickle approach than a short, sharp, instant lockdown.

So far, Australia has not contained the epidemic as well as it could have, with a recent lapse in border control with the Ruby Princess cruise ship.

A silent epidemic may be growing, driven by mild or asymptomatic infections of people who did not meet our testing criteria.

A short, sharp lockdown for two to three incubation periods

The travel bans have been the most successful and strongest element of our approach. A phased approach of gradually increasing social distancing whilst keeping schools open will have some effect, but likely not enough.

It will leave us dealing with COVID-19 for much longer, with a slow trickle of new infections that keep feeding the epidemic. What’s needed is a short, sharp lockdown for two to three incubation periods (four to six weeks), combined with scaled up testing capacity and expanded testing criteria.

This strategy, similar to South Korea’s approach, would reduce the size of the epidemic substantially, spare the health system and give us a more manageable baseline from which to best protect Australia until a vaccine is available.

Epidemic growth is exponential, leaving little time for decision making. On March 1 we had 25 cases and now, nearly at the end of March we have over 4,700 cases.

While some of these are travel-imported cases, there is likely an as-yet undetected silent epidemic. In other words, there could be widespread community transmission of infections which restrictive testing and test kit shortages are preventing us from detecting.

We are concerned about the possibility of Australia losing control of the epidemic. We may well exceed health system capacity, increase the number of cases, experience health and economic losses, and a longer time to societal recovery.

A sharp lockdown needn’t last six to 12 months

While the curve has flattened since March 24, this is likely the impact of the travel bans implemented between March 5-10 on Iran, South Korea and Italy.

It is too early yet to see an impact of social distancing, and lapses like the Ruby Princess cruise ship incident, together with lack of testing for asymptomatic high-risk people, may allow transmission to continue in the community.

Modeling shows that the greatest impact will be gained by the most comprehsnive and immediate social distancing measures (such as lockdown), combined with enhanced testing and quarantine.

The argument that such measures need to be long-term (six to 12 months) is incorrect. China has demonstrated the feasibility of a short lockdown followed by phased lifting of restrictions.

A short, sharp, complete lockdown of four to six weeks will improve Australia’s control of the epidemic, reduce case numbers more rapidly and bring us to a more manageable baseline. From there, we can start to phase in lifting of restrictions safely. Economic recovery can begin.

The slow trickle approach, especially if schools remain open, may result in continued epidemic growth, potential failure of the health system, and a far longer road to recovery.

A more comprehensive lockdown buys time

A comprehensive lock-down also buys time to scale up required testing, capacity for rapid case identification and isolation, and for thorough tracking and quarantine of contacts.

Contact tracing could be aided by novel smart phone apps, deployed with great success in South Korea.

For lockdown to be successful in a short, sharp burst, it must be accompanied by scaled up testing. We must ensure every new case can be identified rapidly during the lockdown and in the follow-up phase, when restrictions are lifted.

We need greatly expanded testing including asymptomatic, high risk people (contacts, evacuees and people in enclosed outbreaks such as cruise ships, aged care facilities, prisons). And we must allow doctors to use their clinical judgement to order a test.

It’s time to scale up our capacity to produce test kits domestically, procure them from overseas or actively ask for help from other countries that have achieved testing at scale.

Without such an improvement in the public health response capacity, the coronavirus epidemic will almost certainly bounce back when even the current lockdown restrictions are lifted.

We have examples of countries which have failed and succeeded. We should allow these examples to guide our response.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Which leaders and health experts will be on the right side of history on COVID-19 policy?

– ref. Regaining control: the case for a short, sharp lockdown (rather than the slow trickle we’ve had so far) – https://theconversation.com/regaining-control-the-case-for-a-short-sharp-lockdown-rather-than-the-slow-trickle-weve-had-so-far-135203

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Collins, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University

To the young and healthy, our new “social distancing” rules may look unnecessarily draconian. If you’re in a demographic that’s low risk for coronavirus, it may be difficult to see the benefit of taking personal responsibility for social distancing. You might think, “I’m unlikely to get badly sick, so why bother?”

There are two broad ways the coronavirus crisis might play out. Both make it wrong for you not to bother.

Ignoring the guidelines makes you culpable

First, suppose our health care system is overwhelmed and you didn’t follow the guidelines. You’ll be a culpable contributor to people’s deaths.

Here’s an analogy. Suppose there’s a crowd at the bottom of a cliff. You and thousands of others are at the top, next to an unfortunately placed boulder. If enough of you push the boulder, the people at the bottom will die. You push the boulder. The crowd dies. Have you done wrong?

Obviously you have. But philosophers will argue over the exact nature of your wrongdoing. Perhaps you “helped” to cause the deaths. Or it’s wrong to be part of a group that does wrong. Or there was some chance you were the tipping point for the boulder’s fall.

Read more: Acting selfishly has consequences right now – why ethical decision making is imperative in the coronavirus crisis

Perhaps you were “complicit” in the deaths, in the sense that your actions implicitly condoned them. Some philosophers argue this is what’s wrong with buying clothes made in sweatshops: by doing so, you condone global labour injustice.

Whatever the best philosophical analysis, we can all agree you’ve done wrong.

Replace the boulder with an overwhelmed health care system. Replace pushing the boulder with ignoring the social distancing guidelines. If you do nothing, you’re a culpable contributor to the spread of coronavirus, and hence more people dying.

Being a free-rider is equally wrong

There’s a second way coronavirus might play out. Maybe our health care system will do okay. To achieve this, we’ll need to flatten the epidemic’s curve, with the help of large-scale social distancing.

To picture this, we need to change the analogy. Suppose a boulder is already rolling towards the cliff edge, with the same crowd at the bottom.

You sit on the sidelines drinking a martini, while others attempt to stop the boulder. You can’t be sure if enough people are acting. Yet you just sit there and watch. Again, you’ve done wrong – even if they succeed.

Read more: Coronavirus: why should we stay 1.5 metres away from each other?

One way to understand your wrongdoing in this second example is that you’re a free-rider: a scab, a sponge, someone who takes advantage of other people’s willingness to help. The free-rider is like someone who relies on people’s general trustworthiness – and the fact that people, therefore, generally trust others – to get away with telling lies.

In Immanuel Kant’s terms, the free-rider’s actions aren’t “universalizable”: if everyone was a free-rider, then trust would break down.

Kant’s basic thought was that before you act, you should ask yourself: what if everyone acted in this way? His belief was we should do only what we can expect others to do. If you fail to do that, by making an exception of yourself, then you demonstrate a fundamental disrespect for others.

This is the same in both the clifftop example and the real world. If everyone drank martinis, the boulder would fall. If everyone ignores our current guidelines, thousands of Australians could die.

Why collective action is so important

So, what is the best way forward? The boulder example suggests we should look at the overall outcome caused by the group, and our part in that. We need to be collectively rational, not just individually rational.

What does this mean? In liberal societies like Australia, we’re used to being rational on an individual level. We’re used to asking: what do I want, and how can I get it? Right now, this way of thinking is leading to panic buying in supermarkets, crowds on beaches and an exponentially growing rate of coronavirus infections.

The collective approach asks: what should we aim for, what pattern of actions will allow us to get there and what’s my individual role in that pattern?

In some places, such as China, the collective pattern can be imposed from the top down, by the government. In liberal societies like Australia, we more often rely on bottom-up change, via individuals choosing to do the “right thing”.

In the clifftop example, our collective goal should be stopping the boulder. As members of the clifftop group, we must each do what we can to stop the fall.

Read more: Nice to meet you, now back off! How to socially distance without seeming rude

In the real world, our collective goal should be to slowing the spread of the virus and flattening the epidemic curve. As Australians, we each must practice social distancing and observe the rules on gatherings of more than two people and self-quarantining.

We are accustomed to being collectively rational in other facets of life. We regularly put aside our self-interest for the good of our family, for instance. And we resent sports stars who put their own individual glory ahead of their team’s victory.

We now need to scale up that thinking to the level of our whole society. After all, nations are unified entities that can set goals for themselves and act to achieve those goals. But governments rely on us, the members of these states, to get them there.

Thinking collectively means embracing the values of solidarity, community and cooperation. These values have been only briefly implicit in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s paternalistic reprimands, but other world leaders have emphasised them.

In the long-term, these values might bring us a more caring society: a society built on recognition of our human vulnerability, our inevitable dependence on one another and our responsibility to look after one another.

For now, those values mean staying home whenever you can.

– ref. Are you complicit in deaths if you don’t stay home? How to do good during the virus lockdown – https://theconversation.com/are-you-complicit-in-deaths-if-you-dont-stay-home-how-to-do-good-during-the-virus-lockdown-134147

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Mette Hotker, Lecturer in Social Planning, RMIT University

Most Australians know you never end up winning on the pokies. What Australians might not know is that the odds of winning a case against a poker-machine proposal in their local neighbourhood are very poor too. My recent study shows the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR) approved almost 90% of poker-machine licence applications that came before it.

Although the commission must consider the views of the local council when making decisions, council opposition rarely stops a proposal. These cases are hard to fight and win. They are very expensive and demanding. Should a Victorian council brave the fight, the odds of losing are as high as 80%.

Read more: Pokies, sport and racing harm 41% of monthly gamblers: survey

Not all councils have the resources or appetite for such a battle. This is a problem for councils and communities. Their frustration about the lack of local influence on regulatory decision-making adds to their concerns about gambling harm in their community.

There’s a reason councils rarely win

The question is why are these cases so hard to win? Especially when the Victorian regulatory system – under the Gambling Regulation Act 2003 and the Planning and Environment Act 1987 – specifically acknowledges the importance of local influence on the distribution of poker machines.

Regulatory and quasi-court procedures are notoriously complex and resource-demanding; this includes poker-machine regulation. However, less attention and scrutiny have been given to the assumptions and principles underpinning gambling policy and procedures. This is the source of councils’ difficulty in winning a case against poker machines.

The VCGLR approves poker machine licences if it considers the “net economic and social impact of approval will not be detrimental to the well-being of the community”. This “no net detriment test” involves a guesstimate of potential costs and benefits in relation to a proposal’s overall community impact.

The premise is that harm can be absorbed into benefits to serve the community as a whole – the majority of people. It’s a utilitarian approach to gambling policy that implies social harm can be costed. This means the nation’s joy of gambling can outweigh vulnerable people’s misery.

Read more: How flashing lights and catchy tunes make gamblers take more risks

Essentially, the VCGLR’s task is (indirectly) to estimate “how many happy gamblers does it take to make up for suicide, bankruptcy, domestic violence?”. All these social harms have been associated with gambling.

This is crudely put, but it’s the social contract we enter into when accepting a cost-benefit approach to gambling policy.

Read more: Areas with more poker machines have higher rates of domestic violence

Apart from the ethical dilemma involved here, the cost-benefit approach to assessing poker-machine applications is highly problematic for local councils.

Social harm is notoriously difficult to cost. That makes it difficult to argue and easier to dismiss. The concerns that are most important to local communities cannot effectively be tabled on the regulatory agenda.

Read more: New research shows pokie operators are not nearly as charitable as they claim

The utilitarian approach is harmful

Victoria’s regulatory system keeps the public debate focused on utility. The ethical basis of poker machines is neither addressed nor debated.

Getting better at costing gambling harm is not going to solve this problem for local councils. An assessment of utility implies the most vulnerable or disadvantaged members of a community must accept the harm burden of gambling so others can have more in the form the freedom to gamble and redistributed benefits – for example through state taxes derived from foker machine gambling.

Most of these poker machine taxes are drawn from these lower socio-economic areas. The inferior social and economic infrastructure of the disadvantaged areas where pokies tend to be concentrated adds to the injustice.

Read more: Who wins from ‘Big Gambling’ in Australia?

The broad distribution of poker machines and associated high levels of harm are evidence of the failure of this cost-benefit approach. Regulatory decision-making isn’t properly assessing the real cost and harm poker machines cause.

The current approach fails to give enough weight to local concerns and meaningful participation and representation. As a result, the system falls short of meeting public expectations of fair and just regulation.

If councils and communities are to get a fairer go, a different policy approach is needed. It needs to be able to better consider the impacts of poker machines on local communities and social justice more generally. It’s time to rethink the use of cost-benefit analysis as the basis for gambling policy – and social policy more broadly.

Gaming regulation across Australia currently protects a very fragile justification for poker machines as legitimate social and economic infrastructure. It serves the gambling industry and state interests better than the well-being of local communities.

Read more: Vital Signs: why governments get addicted to smoking, gambling and other vices

– ref. Most community bids to block pokies fail – the law is stacked against them too – https://theconversation.com/most-community-bids-to-block-pokies-fail-the-law-is-stacked-against-them-too-132876

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, University of Melbourne

Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown for India’s 1.3 billion people. With just four hours’ notice, the government instructed everyone to remain in their homes, banned public events, closed schools and colleges and shut commercial and industrial outlets across the country.

The World Health Organisation has praised Modi’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis. The lockdown may also be crucial in preventing the spread of the virus.

But the recent move to prevent community transmission is having an enormous impact on those most in need in India – the hundreds of millions who live in poverty.

Food aid from government ‘feels like a joke’

Over 90% of India’s 500 million non-agricultural workers are employed in the informal economy, for example, as construction workers, food vendors, rickshaw drivers or in sales. After the lockdown was announced, many people found their industries or operations had closed, or new rules about travel and social distancing prevented them from working.

One such individual, Anand, belongs to an adivasi, or tribal, migrant community living in a slum colony in the outskirts of Nagpur, a city in Maharashtra, central India. We met Anand (all names in the story are pseudonyms) in the context of research we have been undertaking on social transformation in contemporary India.

Read more: Why Modi’s India has become a dangerous place for Muslims

Since the start of the lockdown, Anand has not been allowed to work in his usual job, cutting trees. Like most others in the informal economy, he relies on his daily wages and has no employment rights, paid leave, insurance or savings.

With no regular access to clean water or even soap, Anand is concerned about COVID-19. He his even more worried about hunger.

I’m so afraid. How long will this last for? If we can’t go to work, how will we get money? And if we don’t have money, how will we eat?

Last week, the federal government announced direct cash transfers to poorer households, mainly through existing government schemes, and provided the elderly, widows and disabled people pension payments for three months in advance.

Two days later, Modi established a Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES fund) to solicit donations from companies and individuals to help those in need.

Several state governments, including Maharashtra, are engaged in similar measures, offering cash transfers and free food to the poor.

Read more: Coronavirus threat reveals the flaws in India’s health system

But the amounts of money and food provided through government initiatives are insufficient and sometimes delivered slowly. Many migrants are also not formally registered to receive support through existing schemes. Instead, they have to rely on NGOs or find some way to “make do” themselves.

Anand has been relying in recent days on a local NGO, which delivers a small bag of food to feed his family of six. Commenting on the tiny parcels that arrive, he said: “It feels like a joke.”

Rural communities worries about returning migrants

There are millions in similar situations across India. Yogesh is a rickshaw driver living on the outskirts of Meerut, a city in Uttar Pradesh, not far from New Delhi. He told us that when his work dries up, “even my shit stops.”

The Uttar Pradesh government has promised one-off cash transfers to its residents, but these amount to just 1,000 rupees, or roughly A$21.50, which is hardly enough to feed a family for five days.

Anand and Yogesh still had some form of shelter, but since the lockdown a large number of India’s enormous migrant worker population – many of whom receive housing through their employer – have become homeless.

Read more: India’s coronavirus lockdown will hit women and migrant workers hardest

In Delhi, night shelters are grossly overcrowded and thousands of people are stranded at bus and train stations. Many have begun walking home, often journeys of hundreds of kilometres, only to be forced to return to the cities.

These struggles are not confined to urban areas. Vandita, who we also know well through our research, lives in a remote village in the Himalayas. As a subsistence farmer, she has some stores of food and even some savings. But the lockdown scares her.

Last year’s crop stores are running dangerously low, and the spring harvest in the mountains is still some months away. Social distancing measures restrict effective agricultural work, particularly the cooperative labour groups so essential to survival in these harsh environments and for the social lives of rural women.

Disrupted supply chains is also making it increasingly difficult to find food to buy at the markets.

The sense of fear and uncertainty is already affecting people’s mental health. Vandita speaks about growing rates of depression as isolation measures disrupt the collective work and cohesion on which the social and economic life of the village depends.

If migrant labourers return from the cities, Vandita predicts her village will be “in crisis”. Like other villagers, she lacks access to decent health care. Reaching the nearest major hospital would be a journey of several days. If there was an outbreak of coronavirus in the village, it would have rapid and tragic consequences.

India has so far avoided the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, though there has been a spike of cases in recent days. The short-term security of people like Anand, Yohesh and Vandita will depend on the capacity of government to expand its distribution of support.

For many of India’s poor, time is running out.

– ref. ‘How will we eat’? India’s coronavirus lockdown threatens millions with severe hardship – https://theconversation.com/how-will-we-eat-indias-coronavirus-lockdown-threatens-millions-with-severe-hardship-135193

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Kearnes, Professor, Environment & Society, School of Humanities and Languages, UNSW

Public health messages about COVID-19 have been inconsistent and changed rapidly. Many have called for a unified source of expertise to guide responses to the crisis.

However, with the federal, state and local governments, as well as international bodies, offering different advice, it is no simple task to “listen to the experts”.

In uncertain situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, biomedical and public health experts contribute facts and their own judgements about risk to our collective thinking and decision making.

The public also have important contributions to make. In response to the spread of coronavirus, community groups are setting out to care for elderly neighbours. People are remembering the importance of nurturing community connections and developing an understanding of the structural burdens placed on women in times of crisis.

Alongside traditional kinds of expertise, this kind of “real time” expertise and leadership at the local scale will be invaluable in coming weeks and months.

Read more: Uncertain? Many questions but no clear answers? Welcome to the mind of a scientist

Expertise is political

Expert judgements don’t exist in a vacuum. They arise from specific social and political contexts. To understand them, we need to acknowledge the tacit assumptions embedded within expert knowledge claims, especially assumptions concerning how publics respond to expert advice.

In recent weeks there has been much debate about the federal governments’s decision to keep schools open, which has only been made more uncertain by disagreements between experts over the role of schools in the transmission of COVID-19.

Similarly, in the Ruby Princess “debacle”, different governments and agencies have attempted to blame each other and drawn on expert knowledge claims to justify their actions.

These examples demonstrate how expertise is entangled with questions of political judgement and anticipated societal responses.

For publics, it can be hard to distinguish between health experts working for the government and those criticising the government. Experts tend to look alike, sound alike, and “advise” alike, leaving publics to navigate the cacophony.

In this situation, deciding which experts to listen to can become a nearly impossible task. Little wonder many people have been slow to change their behaviour.

Understanding public responses

As recently as two months ago, during Australia’s catastrophic bushfire season, publics were seen as resourceful and resilient. That image has quickly been replaced by a characterisation as vulnerable, easily spooked, and panicking in the face of uncertainty.

However, we can understand buying food, cleaning products, face masks, toiletries, and medication for asthma and fevers as reasonable responses to questions that experts themselves are trying to address in real time. For example, medical anthropologist Christos Lynteris has argued that face mask buying sprees are a reminder we should think of epidemics “not simply as biological events but also as social processes”.

Read more: Stocking up to prepare for a crisis isn’t ‘panic buying’. It’s actually a pretty rational choice

Science studies scholar Brian Wynne has said the idea of public trust in expertise is too simple. The relationship between publics and experts is complex and ambivalent, he argues, and qualified by “the experience of dependency, possible alienation, and lack of agency”.

Public responses to COVID-19 are not as simple as a mass panic, but they signal something more worrying. The public lacks confidence in public health infrastructure and its ability to contain the virus. “Toilet paper panic” is the response of a population for whom expert advice is one factor among many that affect their feelings of security and wellbeing.

For experts seeking to contribute to public decision making, researchers have empirically demonstrated the productive value of collaborative approaches. For example, sociologist Steven Epstein has documented how collaborations between researchers and broader “lay experts” during the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the 1990s played a key role in the public health response to the disease.

Engaging public expertise, even in times of crisis

But how do we achieve meaningful engagement between publics and experts? Broadening our understanding of expertise would be a start.

Expertise might include the outpouring of creative expression prompted by COVID-19, or the surge in creation of mutual support groups.

Likewise, efforts to translate health warnings are essential for engaging vulnerable communities. These networks of varied expertise are likely to prove invaluable when existing governance is over-stretched or breaks down.

Diverse, diffuse, and local initiatives are likely to continue during periods of chaos, with the added advantage of feeding further expertise from the ground back into the knowledge system.

The need for a diversity of expertise is already being recognised in responses to COVID-19. The WHO recommends risk communication strategies should “promote a two-way dialogue with communities, the public and other stakeholders”.

The ABC’s Coronacast podcast is one such two-way channel that responds to public concerns and questions. Scientists are also seeking volunteer researchers in the effort to address COVID-19, and many viral social media threads sharing notes on patients’ experience of triage and care have been important sources of information for healthcare workers.

Attending to the dynamism and diversity of expertise does not diminish its invaluable roles in society.

Understanding that the crisis of COVID-19 is also a social one should raise questions of how our traditional reliance on expert advice relegates local expertise to the sidelines.

It is critical that we recognise how local expertise is filling the gaps in government policies and expert advice, and is likely to continue to do so in crises such as the recent bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have an opportunity to appreciate that community responses are characterised by their own expertise. We ought also to listen to those experts.

– ref. We should listen to coronavirus experts, but local wisdom counts too – https://theconversation.com/we-should-listen-to-coronavirus-experts-but-local-wisdom-counts-too-134034

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Gearing, Journalist, author, broadcaster, Queensland University of Technology

I’m trying to work out what to do before I end up in a body bag but that seems unavoidable right now.

This was one of the first replies this month to my research questionnaire on domestic violence. The participant is a young lawyer in regional Australia who has escaped a coercively controlling relationship, during which she received several murder threats and survived two murder attempts.

In the next six months, as coronavirus lock-down regulations bite, she is more terrified of her ex than of COVID-19. This is because she is required to hand over their child weekly to him in order to comply with Family Court orders.

Read more: ‘Cabin fever’: Australia must prepare for the social and psychological impacts of a coronavirus lockdown

There is no longitudinal research on what happens when families are required by government regulation to stay at home for six months, because it has not happened in living memory.

Victims and their children who live with the perpetrator will be at constant risk.

Victims who have escaped but who have children with the perpetrator, are reporting perpetrators are using COVID-19 as an extra weapon in their arsenal, fearing that the family law system will be hard-pressed to protect them.

Every other person I have surveyed in the past four weeks has reported living in fear of their life – a fear exacerbated enormously under coronavirus isolation regulations. Coercive control generates this fear in victims.

Living with constant threat

Following the publication of my article on Hannah Clarke and her children in The Guardian last month, a dozen women have already contacted me indicating they believe they are at imminent risk of being murdered.

Using the UK Home Office’s definition of coercive control – which is a crime in the UK – I have constructed a questionnaire to determine the degree of coercion being exerted on a person. (Coercive control is not a crime in Australia.)

Read more: Coercive control is a key part of domestic violence. So why isn’t it a crime across Australia?

I have also used the eight stages of intimate partner homicide to assess the level of risk of homicide.

The dozen women I have interviewed so far liken their situation to domestic terrorism, in which they are hostages who will spend the next six months trying to protect themselves and their children.

The women report previous threats to kill them by strangulation, shooting or burning. Several have already survived murder attempts by partners or former partners.

In a sinister early finding, one man has disclosed the method by which he plans to commit the murder, including how he intends to escape culpability.

Where the police come in

The usual timeline for research leading to findings and then to forming the basis for evidence-based policy will be far too slow to prevent domestic violence deaths in the COVID-19 crisis.

The danger levels already assessed are so high that I am asking them to forward a copy of their completed questionnaires directly to the relevant police commissioner, police minister and shadow minister in their state.

Federal government responses to COVID-19 have broken all previous expectations for government intervention in order to save lives.

Further intervention could be implemented now to protect families in isolation. The need for safe housing for domestic violence victims who escape has never been more urgent.

Waiting for the evidence of a spike in intimate partner deaths and the deaths of children – especially now that we could copy UK legislation to criminalise coercive control – could be at the cost of too many lives.

How governments can help

A possible solution is for people who own a second home that is standing empty to make them available via police for emergency safe houses, with subsidised rental.

Early indicators are that one consequence is a “pressure-cooker” effect that is already being observed as a 40% spike in the number of counsellors who are reporting increased demand for help.

Read more: Is your mental health deteriorating during the coronavirus pandemic? Here’s what to look out for

Prime Minister Scott Morrison responded on March 29 with a promise of A$150million in the form of support for telephone counselling services who address domestic violence, including to 1800 Respect and Mensline.

Forensic criminologist Jane Monckton-Smith, who analysed 372 cases of intimate partner homicide, found that 100% of the relationships involved coercive control by the murderer of their eventual victim.

In many cases, the first physical violence was the murder itself, as exemplified in the murder of Hannah Clarke and her children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4, and Trey, 3 in Brisbane on February 19 this year.

The offender, Rohan Baxter, had controlled his wife – who she could see, what she could wear and every other aspect of her life – for ten years. But it was only when she finally left that Baxter began being physically violent. Within months he killed her and all of their children, and himself.

Monckton-Smith has also identified an eight-stage pattern in intimate partner homicides. They always begin with coercive control.

This finding could potentially save lives in Australia if they are applied to our policing methods, our child safety departments and our family law system.

The eight stages begin with a pre-relationship history of abuse by the perpetrator. The second stage is a new relationship that becomes serious very quickly. In stage three, the perpetrator dominates the victim using coercive control.

Stage four is the first signal of danger – this is when there is a trigger that threatens the perpetrator’s control – for example, the relationship ends or the perpetrator gets into financial difficulty.

The final four stages may occur over months but sometimes they develop rapidly – within days or even hours.

This is why police should be far more focused on the history of relationships and the degree of coercive control within a relationship than with physical violence.

Stage five is an escalation in the intensity or frequency of the partner’s control tactics, such as by stalking or threatening suicide.

Stage six begins when the perpetrator’s thinking changes and he or she decides either to move on to another relationship or to take revenge by injuring or killing.

Stage seven is a red flag that could be detected via electronic surveillance in a similar way to the methods being used by counter-terrorism police. Potential domestic terrorists could be detected searching online for particular key words or for weapons.

Stage eight is the homicide itself.

Where to from here?

In my preliminary questionnaire with women who have escaped abusive relationships, all of the participants so far have disclosed a variety of murder threats and/or murder attempts.

In several cases, the women stayed in the relationship despite the murder threats in order to protect their children. But it was the murder attempts that finally precipitated them to leave with the children.

All the women were subsequently pursued by the perpetrator via the Family Court and were granted access, thus enabling the perpetrator to maintain contact with their intended victim.

Under the coronavirus regime, leaving violent relationships is likely to become far more difficult and dangerous.

The prime minister has acknowledged that for many families, home is not a safe place and more needs to be done to counter the threat.

The problem for all of the women surveyed so far is that current policing that focuses on an incident-based response primarily to physical assaults misses the main driver of intimate partner homicide.

The quiet revolutions in response to the medical and economic threats of COVID-19 at federal level, indicate a similarly determined and focused response to domestic abuse might yield a solution.

The National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

– ref. Coronavirus and ‘domestic terrorism’: how to stop family violence under lockdown – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-and-domestic-terrorism-how-to-stop-family-violence-under-lockdown-135056

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marissa Parrott, Reproductive Biologist, Wildlife Conservation & Science, Zoos Victoria, and Honorary Research Associate, BioSciences, University of Melbourne

Tree kangaroos are so unusual that when Europeans first encountered them in Australia in 1872, they were sceptical. Who would believe a kangaroo could climb a tree?

But the recent birth of Chimbu – a Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo at Healesville Sanctuary – gives us the chance to watch one of these unique, and very rare, creatures grow up.

Read more: In the remote Cambodian jungles, we made sure rare Siamese crocodiles would have enough food

The Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo is a threatened species found in forests in the Central Cordillera mountain ranges of Papua New Guinea, from sea level to high in the clouds.

Chimbu’s birth in September is the latest success of a complex web of international conservation. Zoos and other organisations around the world transfer and match tree-kangaroos to avoid inbreeding and sustain a genetically healthy captive population.

A climbing kangaroo? That’s roo-diculous!

Europeans in New Guinea first described tree kangaroos in 1828. While there have been plenty of disagreements about who is related to whom, we now know there are 14 distinct species.

Early explorers considered the very idea of a climbing roo ridiculous, but these animals are specially adapted to life in the trees. They likely all evolved from a terrestrial ancestor earlier in the Pliocene, 5.3 million to 2.5 million years ago.

Tree kangaroos have much longer forelimbs than their ground-dwelling cousins and their claws are much larger and strongly curved. This provides much stronger grip when climbing trees and gripping smaller branches.

They still have large strong hind limbs, but their feet are shorter, broader and have a long curved claw on each toe.

Read more: This extinct kangaroo had a branch-crunching bite to rival today’s giant pandas

The pad of the hindfoot is single, large and with prominent grooves, all of which enhance the animal’s grip when climbing and walking in the canopy. The tails of tree kangaroos aren’t capable of grasping things like a monkey’s, but they’re long and often held out behind the animal for balance.

But perhaps one of the most obvious differences between tree kangaroos and their terrestrial cousins is their adorably small bear-like ears.

Threatened with extinction

Two species of tree kangaroos are found in the forests of northeast Australia and 12 species in the jungles of New Guinea. All species of tree kangaroos are threatened with extinction in New Guinea, although much about these animals is unknown.

Traditionally hunted for food, hassled by dogs and threatened by the destruction of their forest habitat, the soft thud of tree roo feet among the trees is falling silent.

But conservation work in their natural habitat and through a globally managed tree kangaroo captive breeding program is helping not only the species, but the people who live alongside them.

Baby Chimbu – a new hope

Chimbu was born in Victoria, but is really an international fellow. His mother Mani came from the National Zoo and Aquarium in Canberra, and his father Bagam arriving from Kreffeld Zoo in Germany.

Mani and Bagam were paired based on the recommendation of scientists and managers who maintain a studbook of Goodfellow’s tree kangaroos around the world.

These gorgeous animals are generally chocolate brown on the back, shading to pale brown or cream on the face and belly, and often with a single or double narrow pale stripe down the back.

Read more: ‘Give us a sniff, love’: giving marsupials scents from suitors helps breeding programs

Their beautiful striped tails are one of their most noticeable features. And while the current population size is unknown, this tree kangaroo is thought to be declining due to hunting for food, local trading for cultural purposes, and habitat destruction through local deforestation and shifting cultivation.

Managing tree kangaroos around the globe

The captive population of Goodfellow’s tree kangaroos in our region is coordinated by the Australasian Zoos and Aquarium Association.

The plan is to maintain long-term healthy populations that are genetically diverse, stable and show natural behaviours to ensure the animals are thriving in their zoo homes.

In turn, the regional program is part of a global species management plan coordinated by the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

A key feature of these regional/global management programs is to avoid any inbreeding. Detailed histories of all animals in the population are closely managed, and suitable breeding pairs are identified by specialist zoo keepers called “Studbook Keepers”.

This is why Chimbu was born from a long-distance romance and travel by his parents.

Your cuppa can help

Supporting wildlife conservation in the wild and with local communities is the driving force for zoos globally.

Although the Goodfellow’s tree kangaroos are officially endangered, we don’t know much about them in the wild. Right now, the Wildlife Conservation Society is working out how many are in the wild and where, so scientists can develop a detailed conservation program.

Cousins of the Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo, such as the Matschie’s tree kangaroo, are more well-known and already have conservation programs in place.

Read more: Yes, kangaroos are endangered – but not the species you think

To help save Matschie’s tree kangaroo, community programs have emerged to address the economic conditions fuelling their over-hunting. Zoos Victoria has partnered with the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program to sell coffee grown by Papua New Guinean villagers. This helps create sustainable alternative income and fund conservation.

Income from coffee sales generates much greater access to healthcare and education, major hurdles in these remote villages. Money from sale of the coffee beans is the only regular income into these villages.

So if you do decide to visit Chimbu at the Healesville Sanctuary (in person or virtually) remember you can also buy some coffee to help his wild cousins.

This article is co-authored by Chris Banks, Manager International Conservation, Zoos Victoria, who has worked with tree kangaroo and community conservation for over 20 years

– ref. Meet Chimbu, the blue-eyed, bear-eared tree kangaroo. Your cuppa can help save his species – https://theconversation.com/meet-chimbu-the-blue-eyed-bear-eared-tree-kangaroo-your-cuppa-can-help-save-his-species-135033

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland

With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a great deal of anxiety, we might come to think people are irrational, selfish or downright crazy. We see people showing up to public venues en masse or clearing supermarket shelves of toilet paper.

Experts are often ignored. We hear inconsistent information and arguments filled with fallacious reasoning being accepted by a seemingly large number people.

The answer for the kind of panicked flurry in reasoning may lie in a field of critical thinking called vice epistemology. This theory argues our thinking habits and intellectual character traits cause poor reasoning.

These thinking habits are developed over a lifetime. When these habits are poorly developed, we can end up with intellectual vices. The more we think viciously (as a vice), the harder it is for us to effectively inquire and seek truth.

Vice epistemology points to many thinking vices and sins that cause problems for inquiry. I have chosen seven that show up regularly in the literature:

1. Sin of gullibility

I heard coronavirus particles can stay in the air for up to five days!

Researchers found SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, remains infectious in airborne droplets for at least three hours.

But all sorts of claims are being touted by people and we’re all guilty of having believed someone who isn’t an expert or simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Gullibility as a thinking sin means that we lack the ability to determine the credibility of information.

Read more: Coronavirus: how long does it take to get sick? How infectious is it? Will you always have a fever? COVID-19 basics explained

Relevant expertise and experience are essential qualities when we’re listening to someone’s own argument. But with something like COVID-19, it’s also important we look at the type of expertise someone has. A GP might be able to tell us how we get the infection – but they wouldn’t count as an expert in infectious disease epidemiology (the way an infectious disease spreads across a population).

2. Sin of cynicism

I’d better stock up on toilet paper before everyone else buys it.

In many ways, cynicism is the opposite of gullibility. It is being overly suspicious of others in their arguments and actions.

If you’ve suddenly become suspicious of your neighbours and what they might do when supermarket stocks are limited, that’s a cynical way to think.

If we think the worst interpretation of arguments and events is correct, we can’t inquire and problem-solve effectively.

3. Sin of pride

I know what’s best for my family!

Pride is an intellectual sin (though it’s more popular as a spiritual one). In this particular case, it is the habit of not admitting to ourselves or to others that we don’t know the answer. Or perhaps that we don’t understand the issue.

We obstruct a genuine search for truth if we are dogmatic in our self-belief.

It’s effective reasoning to take what the evidence and experts say and then apply it specifically to our individual needs. But we have gone astray in our thinking if we contradict those who know more than us and are unwilling to admit our own limitations.

4. Sin of closed-mindedness

I won’t accept that.

Closed-mindedness means we’re not willing to see things from different perspectives or accept new information. It’s a serious intellectual vice as it directly interferes with our ability to adjust our beliefs according to new information.

Worse still, being close-minded to new ideas and information means it’s even more challenging to learn and grow – we’d be closed minded to the idea that we’re closed minded.

5. Sin of prejudice

I’ve stopped buying Chinese food – just in case.

Prejudiced thinking is an intellectual vice we often start developing early in life. Children can be incredibly prejudiced in small ways – such as being unwilling to try new foods because they already somehow know they’re gross.

Read more: Coronavirus fears can trigger anti-Chinese prejudice. Here’s how schools can help

As a character flaw, it means we often substitute preconceived notions for actual thinking.

6. Sin of negligence

SARS was more deadly than COVID-19 and that wasn’t that big a deal

Creating a poor analogy like this one is not a substitute for thoughtful research and considered analysis.

Still, it is difficult to explore every single topic with thorough evaluation. There’s so much information out there at the moment it can be a real chore to investigate every claim we hear.

But if we’re not willing to check the facts, we’re being negligent in our thinking.

7. Sin of wishful thinking

This will all be over in a week or two and it’ll be business as usual.

Our capacity to believe in ourselves, our hard work, our friends and culture can often blind us to hard truths.

It’s perfectly fine to aim for a certain outcome but we need to recognise it doesn’t matter how much we hope for it – our desire doesn’t affect the likelihood of it happening.

Read more: Thinking about thinking helps kids learn. How can we teach critical thinking?

A pandemic like COVID-19 shows our way of life is fragile and can change at any moment. Wishful thinking ignores the stark realities and can set us up for disappointment.

So, what can we do about it?

There are some questions we can ask ourselves to help improve our intellectual character traits:

What would change my mind?

It’s a red flag for sin of pride if nothing will change your mind.

What is the strongest argument the other side has?

We often hold each piece of the truth in our own perspective. It’s worth keeping in mind that unless there’s wanton cruelty involved, chances are differing arguments will have some good points.

What groups would gain or lose the most if we keep thinking this way?

Sometimes we fail to consider the practical outcomes of our thoughts for people who aren’t like us. We’ve seen in the last few weeks that the people who have a lot to lose (such as casual workers) matter when it comes to the way we respond to the pandemic.

It’s worth taking a moment to consider their perspectives.

How much do you actually know about an issue? Who is an expert?

The experts always have something to say. If they agree on it, it’s a good indication we should believe them. If there isn’t general consensus, we should be dubious of one-sided claims to truth.

And remember the person’s actual expertise – it’s too easy to mistake a political leader or famous person with an expert.

In challenging days like these, we may be able to help ensure a better outcome for everyone if we start by asking ourselves a few simple questions.

– ref. How not to fall for coronavirus BS: avoid the 7 deadly sins of thought – https://theconversation.com/how-not-to-fall-for-coronavirus-bs-avoid-the-7-deadly-sins-of-thought-133069

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warwick Smith, Research economist, University of Melbourne

Understandably, given we are in a crisis, the government has baulked at including superannuation contributions in the A$140 billion worth of $1,500 per fortnight wage top-ups it will be directing to six million Australians.

As the JobKeeper fact sheet puts it:

It will be up to the employer if they want to pay superannuation on any additional wage paid because of the JobKeeper Payment.

This is in the middle of a treasury led Retirement Income Review that is considering, among other things, whether the current 9.5% of salary contribution should be increased to 10% and then to 10.5% and then in a series of annual steps to 12% by 2025.

In considering the idea (it is actually leglislated – if the government decided not to go ahead it would need to unleglislate it) it helps to go back to basiscs.

The blinding power of money

The trouble with money is most people are so busy looking at it they are blind to what’s going on in the real economy – by which I mean the production and distribution of goods and services.

Our current material standard of living depends almost entirely on our current ability to produce goods and services (assuming for a moment imports are funded by exports).

Similarly, our standard of living in 2050 will depend almost entirely on our capacity to produce goods at that time. This means it has little to do with how much money is in our superannuation accounts.

Part of the justification for superannuation is to get us more resources in retirement, and it will for those who have big super balances, but it won’t do much to change the total amount of resources available at the time.

The limits to saving

Often it’s put another way. We are told baby boomers need to fund themselves in retirement, instead of relying on pensions paid for by those who are still in the workforce.

But imagine a perfect scenario where every retired baby boomer has $1 million in super, freeing those still working from the tax burden of funding the pension.

When the boomers are using their super to buy services and goods, who are they going to take them away from?

You guessed it, those still working.

They’ll be giving up resources to support the retirement of boomers, whoever supplies the cash.

In the main, saving can’t create resources

If there was no superannuation and the government instead taxed current workers in order to fund retiree consumption, the real cost to workers would be the same. That cost is the provision of goods and services to retired people instead of workers.

Individuals can indeed save for the future by foregoing some goods and services today in order to have more of them later. Financial planners refer to it as consumption smoothing.

But an entire society can’t save for the future through consumption smoothing.

If Australia as a whole consumes fewer goods and services in one year, it is likely to reduce rather than increase its future wealth because it is fully utilised labour and capital that drives investment and productivity.

Read more: 5 questions about superannuation the government’s new inquiry will need to ask

That’s what lies at the core of misunderstandings about the superannuation system. Foreign investment aside, it can’t allow an entire society to save for the future to support itself in retirement.

It can skew the distribution of resources in future years, away from those of working age and those with low super balances towards those with (tax concession subsidised) high super balances.

Boosting productivity can help

If our goal is an adequate and sustainable income in retirement for all Australians, our main priority ought to be ensuring that those remaining in the workforce are productive enough to support themselves, their children, those without work and those who have retired.

In other words, if you’re worried about the economic impact of our ageing population on our material standard of living (and there are reasons not to be worried) you would want our focus to be on productivity, rather than retirement savings.

Read more: Myth busted. Boosting super would cost the budget more than it saved on age pensions

To the extent retirement savings are used for productivity enhancing investment, that’s good. The reality is much of our retirement savings are funnelled relatively unthinkingly into an already bloated financial system where they expand speculative bubbles.

Elsewhere I’ve referred to it as Australia’s first compulsory Ponzi scheme.

Like most important economic questions, the best retirement income system is not, at its core, solely an economic question, it is also a moral and political question about distribution and inequality.

So, with that in mind, here’s what my personal moral (plus economic) analysis tells me would be the best retirement income system.

We could give the money back, slowly

The best way would be to get rid of compulsory superannuation, give all the money back to account holders (slowly to avoid too much inflation), mandate a 9.5% pay rise in its place and redirect the tens of billions of dollars we currently spend on superannuation tax concessions toward rent assistance, a higher Newstart allowance and a higher pension.

With retired renters better looked after, a moderate (say 20%) increase in the pension, and continued indexation of the pension to wages, no retired Australian would be living in poverty.

It’d be sustainable so long as we ensured sufficient worker productivity, primarily through full employment, appropriate infrastructure investment and well-supported education, training and research.

There, problem solved.

– ref. The coronavirus response calls into question the future of super – https://theconversation.com/the-coronavirus-response-calls-into-question-the-future-of-super-133906

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larisa Labzin, Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland

With much of society now effectively in lockdown, how will we know when it’s safe to resume something like normality?

It will largely depend on being able to say who is safe from contracting the coronavirus, officially named SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease called COVID-19, and who still needs to stay out of harm’s way. A blood test to detect who has antibodies against the virus would be a crucial aid.

An antibody test – which would identify those whose immune systems have already encountered the virus, as opposed to current tests that reveal the presence of the virus itself – will be an important part of efforts to track the true extent of the outbreak.

This is because the antibody test will be able to determine whether someone has been infected with virus, even if they haven’t shown symptoms.

Read more: Coronavirus: how long does it take to get sick? How infectious is it? Will you always have a fever? COVID-19 basics explained

When we get infected with the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), one of the ways our immune system fights the virus is by making antibodies. These small molecules bind specifically to SARS-CoV-2 (and not other viruses or bacteria), and combat the infection, mainly by preventing the virus from entering our cells.

Even after we’ve cleared a particular virus infection, these antibodies stay in our bloodstream, ready to protect us if we encounter the same virus again. This is the principle behind vaccination.

Because antibodies are specific to a particular virus, that means if we can detect SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in someone’s blood, we know that person has already been infected with the coronavirus.

Scientists in the United States and Europe have already developed specific antibody tests for SARS-CoV-2. Laboratory tests show that only antibodies from SARS-CoV-2 patients will bind to SARS-CoV-2 (and not to the 2003 SARS virus, for example). This tells us the test is specific.

Testing times

Antibody tests are different from the current testing kits used at COVID-19 clinics, which reveal the presence of the virus itself (by detecting its genetic material), rather than our antibodies against it.

That is useful for determining whether someone is currently infected, but cannot spot people who have already fought off the virus. In contrast, the antibody tests won’t be able to detect if someone is newly infected with SARS-CoV-2, as it takes our immune system a week or more to make antibodies. So we still need to do the existing tests to accurately diagnose a current infection.

Many companies have developed rapid test kits for detecting anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The UK is already rolling out 3.5 million antibody tests, while Australia has ordered 1.5 million antibody tests to determine whether patients showing symptoms of fever and cough are infected.

What still needs to be tested is how specific those kits are. It’s vital that these antibody test kits are only able to detect antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, and not other coronaviruses or even viruses of other types. Otherwise, people might think they are protected against SARS-CoV-2 when in fact they aren’t.

Additionally, because the onset of symptoms may appear within 2-14 days after exposure, a person might test negative to the antibody test but actually be infected. So we really still need to use the two tests together to accurately diagnose patients with COVID-19.

A new test developed by NSW Health Pathology will also be able to determine whether the antibodies in the blood are able to kill the virus. These kinds of tests will help clinicians and scientists measure exactly how soon after infection we develop antibodies, what levels are needed to be protective, and how long these antibodies stay in our body.

This will also help scientists track the spread of the virus and know if someone is going to be immune to reinfection with SARS-CoV-2.

Rapid response

These antibody tests have been developed much more rapidly than vaccines, which are still many months away. This is because the antibody tests are done outside the body, using just a small blood sample, perhaps just a pinprick.

In contrast, a vaccine needs to be injected into the body, so it has to be tested for safety as well as effectiveness.

For a vaccine, we first need to understand how the immune response to the virus itself works, because essentially a vaccine is trying to trick the immune system into thinking it’s seen the virus before so it makes protective antibodies. Then, we need to thoroughly test any candidate vaccine to ensure it doesn’t make people ill. This means we probably won’t see any vaccines for at least 12 months.

The new antibody tests will also help guide vaccine development. By measuring antibody levels in infected and recovered patients, we’ll have a much better idea of the levels of protective antibodies a vaccine needs to elicit.

Read more: Coronavirus vaccine: here are the steps it will need to go through during development

While we wait for a vaccine, the new antibody tests will give scientists, doctors and public health officials much more information about who gets infected, who has already been infected and recovered, and how protected we are against reinfection.

But there is still a long way to go before we can test people’s blood for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and confidently say it is safe for people to go back to work or into the community without getting sick.

Ultimately it is up to our community leaders and public health officials to decide when it is safe for us to resume normal life.

– ref. Antibody tests: to get a grip on coronavirus, we need to know who’s already had it – https://theconversation.com/antibody-tests-to-get-a-grip-on-coronavirus-we-need-to-know-whos-already-had-it-134547

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Richardson, Senior Research Fellow, UNSW

People in Western Australia may soon see more than birds in the sky, as the state’s police force has announced plans to deploy drones to enforce social distancing. The drones will visit parks, beaches and cafe strips, ensuring people comply with the most recent round of gathering rules.

As COVID-19 restrictions tighten around the world, governments are harnessing the potential of drones. From delivering medical supplies, to helping keep people indoors – drones can do a lot in a pandemic.

Since the outbreak began, China has used drones to deliver medical supplies and food, disinfect villages, and even provide lighting to build a hospital in Wuhan in nine days. Drone medical deliveries have cut transit times, reduced the strain on health personnel and enabled contactless handovers, reducing the risk of infection.

It’s clear drones are helping combat COVID-19, as governments use them to control and monitor.

But these measures may be difficult to rollback once the pandemic passes. And safeguards will be needed to prevent unwanted surveillance in the future.

Read more: Aerial threat: why drone hacking could be bad news for the military

Drone use: clever, quirky and sometimes concerning

With cities on lockdown, drones have shown uncanny images of emptied urban landscapes from Wuhan and metros across the globe.

Social distancing has inspired some quirky uses by individuals, including walking the dog and asking for a date.

But the main game has been about control. China is using drones to enforce quarantine rules and deter gatherings that violate social distancing rules.

One viral video showed a drone scolding an elderly woman for not wearing a mask. In some cases, traffic police and municipal officials used drones fitted with speakers to order people home and break up mahjong games.

Flying at high altitudes, drones can help police and other officials monitor large areas to identify those violating restrictions. Similar tactics are being used in Madrid and Nice, with talk of deployment in many other places.

A defence for the ‘good drone’?

There are huge advantages in sending drones into disaster zones such as bushfires, or remote landscapes for search and rescue. Pilots can safely stream crucial vision from a drone’s optical and thermal cameras.

Read more: Drones help track wildfires, count wildlife and map plants

But while “good drones” can be valuable in disaster, they have been criticised for giving drone warfare an ethical veneer by association with humanitarian work. Some have even argued that using drones at all risks tainting relief work, because militaries have played a major role in developing drone technologies that are also responsible for humanitarian tragedies.

Like all technologies, the question with drones should be about how they are used. For instance, inspecting the breached nuclear reactor at Fukushima with drones is sensible. But embedding systems of control that can be turned against civilians is its own disaster in the making.

Normalising surveillance

With high definition and infrared images streamed to command stations, China’s drones may be able to use facial recognition to identify specific individuals using its Social Credit System, and fine them for indiscretions.

Read more: Hundreds of Chinese citizens told me what they thought about the controversial social credit system

This level of social control may be appealing in a pandemic that could cost millions of lives. But it could also have chilling effects on social and political life.

Surveillance tools typically work best for social control when people know they are being watched. Even in liberal societies, people might think twice about joining climate or racial justice protests if they know they’ll be recorded by a drone overhead.

Feeling like you’re constantly being watched can can create a kind of atmospheric anxiety, particularly for marginalised groups that are already closely monitored because of their religion or welfare status.

Putting more drones in the sky raises concerns about trust, privacy, data protection and ownership. In a crisis, those questions are often ignored. This was clear after 9/11, when the world learnt the lessons of surveillance systems and draconian national security laws.

The impact would hit home

Police in the west are already deploying drones for various purposes, including at sporting events in Australia. Our defence force is buying Reaper MQ-9B drones because they are cleared for use in civilian airspace.

We might be fine with delivery drones in Canberra, or disaster drones ferrying urgent medical supplies, but how would we feel if they were indistinguishable from drones piloted by police, the military or private security companies?

A team at the University of South Australia is currently designing a “pandemic” drone to detect virus symptoms such as fever and coughing from a distance. Valuable as that is now, this tool could easily be used to intrusively manage the public’s health after the crisis is over.

It can be difficult to see the long term impacts of choices made in an emergency. But now is the best time for policymakers to set limits on how drones an be used in public space.

They need to write sunset clauses into new laws so that surveillance and control systems are rolled back once the pandemic eases, and create accountability mechanisms to ensure oversight.

– ref. ‘Pandemic drones’: useful for enforcing social distancing, or for creating a police state? – https://theconversation.com/pandemic-drones-useful-for-enforcing-social-distancing-or-for-creating-a-police-state-134667

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Private hospitals will be on the frontline in the coronavirus battle, under an arrangement with the federal government that makes available the sector’s more than 30,000 beds and 105,000 workforce, including more than 57,000 nursing staff.

The government will offer agreements to Australia’s 657 private and not-for-profit hospitals “to ensure their viability, in return for maintenance and capacity” during the COVID-19 crisis.

The agreement makes available more resources to meet the virus crisis, preserves the private hospital workforce, and is designed to allow a speedy resumption of non-elective surgery and other normal activity when the crisis has passed.

The states will complete “private hospital COVID-19 partnership agreements”, with the Commonwealth paying half the cost.

“In an unprecedented move, private hospitals, including both overnight and day hospitals, will integrate with state and territory health systems in the COVID-19 response,” the government said in a Tuesday statement.

These hospitals “will be required to make infrastructure, essential equipment (including ventilators), supplies (including personal protective equipment), workforce and additional resources fully available to the state and territory hospital system or the Australian government”.

Private hospitals will support the COVID-19 response through:

• Hospital services for public patients – both positive and negative for COVID 19

• Category 1 (urgent) elective surgery

• Use of wards and theatres to expand ICU capacity

• Accommodation for quarantine and isolation cases where necessary, and safety procedures and training are in place, including:

  • Cruise and flight COVID-19 passengers
  • Quarantine of vulnerable members of the community
  • Isolation of infected vulnerable COVID-19 patients.

The cost of the move is estimated at $1.3 billion.

Last week the government announced a ban on non-urgent elective surgery. While this freed up beds and staff, it would also strip the hospitals of core income and threaten the collapse of some hospitals with government action.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the agreement dramatically expanded the capacity of the Australian hospitals system to deal with COVID-19, at the same time as the curve of new cases showed early signs of being flattened.

The private hospitals “are available as an extension now of the public hospital system in Australia. So, whilst we’re not taking ownership, we have struck a partnership, where in return for the state agreements and the commonwealth guarantee, they will be fully integrated within the public hospital system”.

Hunt said the $1.3 billion estimated cost was not capped. “If more is required, more will be provided. If it turns out that it’s not that expensive, then those funds will be available for other activities. That takes our total additional investment to over $5.4 billion within the health sector.”

In a letter to private hospital providers, Hunt stressed: “A fundamental principle of this agreement is that it contributes towards to your ongoing viability, not profits or loan/debt repayments”.

The Commonwealth deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth said intense efforts were being made to ramp up rapidly the number of ventilators.

He said there were some 2,200 ventilated intensive care beds in Australia. Currently just over 20 were being used for COVID-19 patients.

With immediate expansion, including repurposing and use of the private sector, this could be increased to 4,400.

“Our target capacity for ventilated intensive care beds in Australia currently stands at 7,500.

“We are working around the clock to procure ventilators,” he said. “Locally, we will have 500 intensive care ventilators fabricated by ResMed, backed up by 5,000 non-invasive ventilators, with full delivery expected by the end of April.”

The Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association welcomed the “ground-breaking agreement” with private hospitals for ensuring both the best use of resources and the stability of the health system for the future.

The Australian tally of cases as of early Tuesday was 4359, with 19 deaths; 230,000 tests had been completed.

– ref. Federal government gets private hospital resources for COVID-19 fight in exchange for funding support – https://theconversation.com/federal-government-gets-private-hospital-resources-for-covid-19-fight-in-exchange-for-funding-support-135207

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Richardson, Senior Research Fellow, UNSW

People in Western Australia may soon see more than birds in the sky, as the state’s police force has announced plans to deploy drones to enforce social distancing. The drones will visit parks, beaches and cafe strips, ensuring people comply with the most recent round of gathering rules.

As COVID-19 restrictions tighten around the world, governments are harnessing the potential of drones. From delivering medical supplies, to helping keep people indoors – drones can do a lot in a pandemic.

Since the outbreak began, China has used drones to deliver medical supplies and food, disinfect villages, and even provide lighting to build a hospital in Wuhan in nine days. Drone medical deliveries have cut transit times, reduced the strain on health personnel and enabled contactless handovers, reducing the risk of infection.

It’s clear drones are helping combat COVID-19, as governments use them to control and monitor.

But these measures may be difficult to rollback once the pandemic passes. And safeguards will be needed to prevent unwanted surveillance in the future.

Read more: Aerial threat: why drone hacking could be bad news for the military

Drone use: clever, quirky and sometimes concerning

With cities on lockdown, drones have shown uncanny images of emptied urban landscapes from Wuhan and metros across the globe.

Social distancing has inspired some quirky uses by individuals, including walking the dog and asking for a date.

But the main game has been about control. China is using drones to enforce quarantine rules and deter gatherings that violate social distancing rules.

One viral video showed a drone scolding an elderly woman for not wearing a mask. In some cases, traffic police and municipal officials used drones fitted with speakers to order people home and break up mahjong games.

Flying at high altitudes, drones can help police and other officials monitor large areas to identify those violating restrictions. Similar tactics are being used in Madrid and Nice, with talk of deployment in many other places.

A defence for the ‘good drone’?

There are huge advantages in sending drones into disaster zones such as bushfires, or remote landscapes for search and rescue. Pilots can safely stream crucial vision from a drone’s optical and thermal cameras.

Read more: Drones help track wildfires, count wildlife and map plants

But while “good drones” can be valuable in disaster, they have been criticised for giving drone warfare an ethical veneer by association with humanitarian work. Some have even argued that using drones at all risks tainting relief work, because militaries have played a major role in developing drone technologies that are also responsible for humanitarian tragedies.

Like all technologies, the question with drones should be about how they are used. For instance, inspecting the breached nuclear reactor at Fukushima with drones is sensible. But embedding systems of control that can be turned against civilians is its own disaster in the making.

Normalising surveillance

With high definition and infrared images streamed to command stations, China’s drones may be able to use facial recognition to identify specific individuals using its Social Credit System, and fine them for indiscretions.

Read more: Hundreds of Chinese citizens told me what they thought about the controversial social credit system

This level of social control may be appealing in a pandemic that could cost millions of lives. But it could also have chilling effects on social and political life.

Surveillance tools typically work best for social control when people know they are being watched. Even in liberal societies, people might think twice about joining climate or racial justice protests if they know they’ll be recorded by a drone overhead.

Feeling like you’re constantly being watched can can create a kind of atmospheric anxiety, particularly for marginalised groups that are already closely monitored because of their religion or welfare status.

Putting more drones in the sky raises concerns about trust, privacy, data protection and ownership. In a crisis, those questions are often ignored. This was clear after 9/11, when the world learnt the lessons of surveillance systems and draconian national security laws.

The impact would hit home

Police in the west are already deploying drones for various purposes, including at sporting events in Australia. Our defence force is buying Reaper MQ-9B drones because they are cleared for use in civilian airspace.

We might be fine with delivery drones in Canberra, or disaster drones ferrying urgent medical supplies, but how would we feel if they were indistinguishable from drones piloted by police, the military or private security companies?

A team at the University of South Australia is currently designing a “pandemic” drone to detect virus symptoms such as fever and coughing from a distance. Valuable as that is now, this tool could easily be used to intrusively manage the public’s health after the crisis is over.

It can be difficult to see the long term impacts of choices made in an emergency. But now is the best time for policymakers to set limits on how drones an be used in public space.

They need to write sunset clauses into new laws so that surveillance and control systems are rolled back once the pandemic eases, and create accountability mechanisms to ensure oversight.

– ref. ‘Pandemic drones’: useful for enforcing social distancing, or just for creating a police state? – https://theconversation.com/pandemic-drones-useful-for-enforcing-social-distancing-or-just-for-creating-a-police-state-134667

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca English, Lecturer in Education, Queensland University of Technology

“How to home school” has been trending on Google for the past few weeks as more and more children stay home from school because of COVID-19.

So, what is homeschooling and is this what parents whose children are learning from home are now doing?

What is home education?

Home education is one of the world’s fastest growing educational movements.

In its broadest sense, home education can be understood as any form of education that occurs outside of a physical school. It includes the 20,000 or so students registered for home education in Australia, as well as distance education students – who are enrolled in a school but learn remotely.

There are a wide variety of home education approaches and they lie on a spectrum. Highly structured approaches that mirror school, with a detailed curriculum and lots of book work, lie at one end. Most people can imagine what that looks like because it’s not that different from traditional schooling.

At the other end is unschooling, where children choose the direction of their learning. In this approach, there may be no formal written work.

Read more: Homeschooling is on the rise in Australia. Who is doing it and why?

With unschooling, the choice is as much of a lifestyle as an education. Parents act as facilitators of their child’s learning, sourcing and providing access to resources and then getting out of the way. Research suggests unschoolers are more likely to be satisfied with their education and have an intrinsic motivation to learn.

Most home educating families’ approaches fall somewhere in between and use a mix of parent-directed and child-directed learning.

What are the legal requirements of home educators?

Each state and territory in Australia has its own laws and requirements around home education. In essence, parents need to apply to register their children. Some states such as the Northern Territory require you to follow any Australian approved curriculum (such as the Australian Curriculum, Montessori or Steiner).

Others, including Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and the ACT, stipulate you just need to cover key learning areas such as English, Maths, Science, Arts, Technology, Health, Humanities or Languages.

In New South Wales, parents need to follow the NSW Syllabus, which is based on, but not the same as, the Australian Curriculum.

Regardless of where they are located, parents indicate their intention to home educate by completing a form from their state’s education department. They then need to develop a plan of their approach, and to show their plan will meet the child’s individual learning needs.

Age levels and year levels are less important in home education – children’s work is targeted to where they are up to not their age.

Parents can buy a pre-packaged curriculum and resources or they can develop their own. They can use tutors and group classes, as well as activities like scouts and sporting teams, and everyday hands-on activities as a part of their learning. If they need to, parents can adapt to better meet their child’s needs.

At the end of the registration period, most states and territories require parents to report on their child’s progress.

Are we all homeschoolers now?

To some extent, when it comes to educating your child at home, this situation is unique – in other respects it’s not.

Many homeschooling families have brought their child home to learn because of a crisis, such as related to bullying, health, or a disability.

But families in this new wave of accidental home educators don’t have to register their children with their state or territory education department. The child’s enrolment is maintained with their school.

Read more: Trying to homeschool because of coronavirus? Here are 5 tips to help your child learn

And, in most cases, the schools are sending work home. Reports on the ground suggest this is working well for many families.

But some parents are reporting difficulties implementing what they’re being asked to do at home. This is particularly so when they’re balancing their child’s education with their own work requirements, or where the schoolwork is worksheet heavy.

If this is your situation, you are not alone and schools are trying their best to make this work. Hopefully, with more time, things will run more smoothly.

What new homeschoolers can learn from the old

Many long established home education families work from home as well, so they empathise with parents’ new found juggle of work and schooling. There’s some things schools and parents can learn from how home educators manage things.

Think about other ways of learning apart from book work. Some children thrive on book work, but others need more hands on tasks. If your child is struggling, talk their teacher and see if he or she is open to you covering the content in a different way.

For example, an alternative to doing fractions through worksheets might be cooking a meal. Cooking allows you to introduce other concepts such as addition and mass (mathematics), following a procedural text (literacy), discussing your experience of learning to cook (humanities and social science), nutrition (health), and even the science of molecular gastronomy. And everyone gets fed.

Read more: Kids at home because of coronavirus? Here are 4 ways to keep them happy (without resorting to Netflix)

That’s something else to keep in mind – kids can sometimes help their parents with the things they need to do. Whether that’s cooking or helping you set up the technology for an online work meeting. Home educating families are used to seeing the learning happening in everyday activities, and doing so can help parents feel less stressed about what their child is missing out on.

If you’re struggling with working out how to do this, there’s support in home education social media groups, where experienced home educators are providing support to parents (and teachers).

Keep in mind, much of this situation is new to home educators too. They’re not used to being at home so much either – much of their learning is normally in the community.

But organisations and groups are doing what they can to link families to the outside world. People are providing online storytime, and zoos, wildlife parks, museums and galleries are freely available online.

– ref. What is homeschooling? And should I be doing that with my kid during the coronavirus lockdown? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-homeschooling-and-should-i-be-doing-that-with-my-kid-during-the-coronavirus-lockdown-135027

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raquel Peel, Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland

With the raft of social distancing measures in place to control the spread of coronavirus, you may be spending more time with your partner than ever before.

If you’re both working from home, and with nowhere to go out to in the evenings, there’s a chance you might start to get on each other’s nerves. Perhaps it’s happening already.

This is normal, particularly given the increased stress we’re all feeling right now. But since we could be in this predicament for a while yet, it’s worth taking steps to ensure we get through this period with our relationships intact. We might even be able to come out stronger.

Read more: ‘Cabin fever’: Australia must prepare for the social and psychological impacts of a coronavirus lockdown

Steering clear of the Four Horsemen

American psychology researcher John Gottman proposed certain behaviours, or the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, lead to the dissolution of romantic relationships.

The first horseman is criticism. This behaviour is defined as an attack on your partner’s character, as distinct from offering a critique or voicing a specific complaint.

Particularly at a time like this, you might be keeping track of your partner’s flaws but not saying anything so as to avoid conflict. But bottled up, anger and frustration will turn to resentment, which you may express by criticising your partner.

Psychologists explain criticism includes inflexible “always” and “never” statements such as “you always have to have the last word” or “you never listen”.

The second horseman is contempt. This behaviour is defined as an insult to your partner. People might do this verbally using sarcasm, or simply by rolling their eyes.

An example is when your partner is talking to you and you say “here we go again” without mindfully listening to what they are trying to say.

Read more: The science of romance – can we predict a breakup?

The third horseman is defensiveness. This behaviour is defined as a counterattack, most often in response to perceived criticism. People use this as a strategy to protect themselves when they are feeling victimised. They assign their partner responsibility for causing them pain.

You might be exhibiting defensiveness if you’re constantly feeling criticised, misunderstood and blamed by your partner without cause, and have an “I am right and they are wrong” attitude.

The fourth horseman is stonewalling. This behaviour is defined by elaborate manoeuvres to avoid interacting with a partner. People who stonewall will often stop communicating with their partner, with the exception of negative non-verbal gestures.

Turn this crisis into an opportunity

People deal with stressful situations by rationalising the best way to protect themselves. This might mean pushing your partner away using the four horsemen.

Gottman estimated these behaviours are 90% accurate in predicting relationship dissolution if not addressed. In his research, couples exhibiting all four horsemen who divorced did so on average 5.6 years after marriage.

A lack of relationship skills – that’s not being open to finding solutions and not admitting any fault for relationship breakdown – is another key contributor to relationship dissolution. So it’s important to do your best to work on your relationship at this time.

As well as making an effort to avoid the four horsemen, here are some other tips for how you and your partner can emerge from this crisis with your relationship intact – if not improved:

• monitor the balance between positive and negative interactions with your partner. Aim for a ratio of 5:1

• own your feelings: use “I” statements to voice your needs as opposed to “you” statements to explain what your partner needs to do or change

• listen to your partner’s feelings and validate their response to this crisis as being OK. Don’t become defensive and attack your partner for how they feel or act

• reassure your partner of their safety. Have a conversation about what safety means to both of you and how you plan to keep yourselves and other members the household safe. This might also include an exercise of discerning facts from myths around the current crisis

• make a new routine with your partner to fit around working at home and family commitments at home. This routine needs to include quality couple time (don’t be afraid to touch, be intimate with and have sex with your partner if you’re both healthy)

• this new routine also needs to include time apart. Give each other time to work on individual hobbies and take it in turns looking after the kids or other family members at home

• make plans with your partner for after the crisis is over. It’s important to accept the reality, but also acknowledge this is not permanent. Planning can help keep you positive and motivated to stay safe

• use this time to practise healthier habits such as eating well, sleeping, exercising, practising mindfulness and learning a new skill. These things improve mental well-being and if done together, can help build intimacy.

Read more: Coronavirus and sex: Dos and don’ts during social distancing

– ref. The coronavirus lockdown could test your relationship. Here’s how to keep it intact (and even improve it) – https://theconversation.com/the-coronavirus-lockdown-could-test-your-relationship-heres-how-to-keep-it-intact-and-even-improve-it-134532

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Webb, Clinical Associate Professor and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney

The pathogens mosquitoes spread by sucking our blood cause over half a million deaths each year and hundreds of millions of cases of severe illness.

But there is no scientific evidence to suggest mosquitoes are transmitting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

There is much more to learn about the coronavirus but based on current understandings, it’s highly unlikely a mosquito will pick up the virus by biting an infected person, let alone be able to pass it on.

Read more: Coronavirus: how long does it take to get sick? How infectious is it? Will you always have a fever? COVID-19 basics explained

Yes, mosquitoes can transmit other viruses

Female mosquitoes need the nutrition contained in blood to help develop their eggs. Viruses take advantage of this biological requirement of mosquitoes to move from host to host.

But for a mosquito to become infected, it first needs to bite an infected animal, such as a bird or kangaroo, or a person.

Mosquitoes can transmit a number of viruses, including dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, Zika and Ross River virus. They can also transmit malaria, which is caused by a parasite.

But they can’t transmit many other viruses, including HIV and Ebola.

For HIV, mosquitoes themselves don’t become infected. It’s actually unlikely a mosquito will pick up the virus when it bites an infected person due to the low concentrations of the HIV circulating in their blood.

For Ebola, even when scientists inject the virus into mosquitoes, they don’t become infected. One study collected tens of thousands of insects during an Ebola outbreak but found no virus.

No, not coronavirus

The new coronavirus is mostly spread via droplets produced when we sneeze or cough, and by touching contaminated surfaces.

Although coronavirus has been found in blood samples from infected people, there’s no evidence it can spread via mosquitoes.

Read more: Feel like you’re a mozzie magnet? It’s true – mosquitoes prefer to bite some people over others

Even if a mosquito did pick up a high enough dose of the virus in a blood meal, there is no evidence the virus would be able to infect the mosquito itself.

And if the mosquito isn’t infected, it won’t be able to transmit it to the next person she bites.

Why some viruses and not others?

It’s easy to think of mosquitoes as tiny flying dirty syringes transferring droplets of infected blood from person to person. The reality is far more complex.

When a mosquito bites and sucks up some blood that contains a virus, the virus quickly ends up in the gut of the insect.

From there, the virus needs to infect the cells lining the gut and “escape” to infect the rest of the body of the mosquito, spreading to the legs, wings, and head.

The virus then has to infect the salivary glands before being passed on by the mosquito when it next bites.

This process can take a few days to over a week.

But time isn’t the only barrier. The virus also has to negotiate getting out of the gut, getting through the body, and then into the saliva. Each step in the process can be an impenetrable barrier for the virus.

This may be straightforward for viruses that have adapted to this process but for others, the virus will perish in the gut or be excreted.

Read more: Explainer: what are antibodies and why are viruses like dengue worse the second time?

– ref. Can mosquitoes spread coronavirus? – https://theconversation.com/can-mosquitoes-spread-coronavirus-134898

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Rose, Research fellow, Australian National University

One aspect of the COVID-19 crisis that has so far escaped widespread public attention in Australia is its potential impact on our food security.

We haven’t seen supermarket shortages of fruit and vegetables like toilet paper and pasta because, being perishable, they are not easily stockpiled and therefore less prone to demand-side spikes.

Read more: When the coronavirus gets tough, the tough get stockpiling

But being perishable also makes them more susceptible to supply-side shocks, such as we’re seeing with higher prices now for the likes of broccoli due to the impact of drought and bushfires.

The major variable in whether the coronavirus crisis will hurt fruit, vegetable an nut supplies (and prices) depends on how they are picked while the nation’s border remains closed to the foreign seasonal workers on which Australian farmers depend.

Foreign muscles, Australian fruit

Rural Australia’s dependence on the muscles of tens of thousands of backpackers and workers on temporary working visas is sometime minimised by official statistics.

More than one-third of peak seasonal jobs on horticultural farms are filled by overseas workers, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

But anyone in direct contact with the industry knows most direct harvest labour in Australia is done by foreigners.

Official statistics about agricultural workers are rubbery. The Australian Bureau of Statistics, for example, can only estimate the total number of workers at between 240,000 and 408,000.

The vagueness is due to three reason. First, the data is based on a single month (in this case August 2016) and picking work is seasonal, with less workers employed in winter. Second, workers move around, so double-counting can occur. Third, overseas workers and contract workers provided by labour hire companies are not included in labour force surveys.

What immigration data tells us, however, is that in 2017-18 about 31,000 backpackers did at least 88 days of farm work to be eligible to extend their visas for a year. (There are no numbers for the number of backpackers working on farms for other reasons.)

A further 8,500 workers from Pacific Island nations and Timor-Leste worked on farms for up to six months on visas issued under Australia’s Seasonal Worker Programme. This increased to about 12,000 in 2018-19.

Domestic restrictions

The indefinite closure of Australia’s borders non-resident foreign nationals jeopardises this supply of farm workers.

The question is whether the spike in domestic unemployment will see Australian workers (and other foreign workers) displaced from other sectors flocking to rural areas to take up those jobs.

Possible complications are travel restrictions, with states closing borders and city dwellers being told to stay away from Australia’s country towns, and the Australian government’s income assistance measures.

As migration researcher Henry Sherrell notes of the job seeker allowance being doubled to A$550 a week, “that’s a pretty decent week if you’re on picking piece rates”.

Read more: Australia’s $130 billion JobKeeper payment: what the experts think

“In theory, Australians laid off in the many sectors now facing recession could head for the countryside and start picking fruit,” he argues in an article co-authored with Stephen Howes, an economics professor at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

In practice, it is just not going to happen. The work is difficult, and farms often geographically isolated. It would take years not months to change the reality that farm work is just not in the choice set of most Australians – who, after all, live in one of the most urbanised and richest countries in the world.

An exemption for seasonal workers

Allowing backpackers and seasonal workers in Australia to extend their visas is an obvious first step. On top of any measures to encourage foreign workers to stay, the longer term may require make an exception to the ban on their entering the country.

The entry of seasonal workers from the Pacific and Timor-Leste already requires medical checks before they travel. Exempting those with seasonal work visas from our closed border policy would not be unreasonable. Canada, which runs a similar guest worker program, has already done so.

With Australian help, workers could be tested for COVID-19 before they fly. On arrival here they would be quarantined for 14 days like everyone else.

The government would need to step in and pay for suitable accommodation, catering and medical services. It would also need to ensure arrangements so workers can get home. But there are there a number of benefits to justify the cost.

Read more: How migrant workers are critical to the future of Australia’s agricultural industry

It contributes not only to Australia’s food security but also its national interest, maintaining and deepening its bonds with its island neighbours.

If there is a silver lining to the current grim situation, it may be that it could serve to make real the rhetoric that our relationship with the Pacific (and Timor-Leste) is one defined by partnership, in which we help ourselves through helping each other.

– ref. Why closing our borders to foreign workers could see fruit and vegetable prices spike – https://theconversation.com/why-closing-our-borders-to-foreign-workers-could-see-fruit-and-vegetable-prices-spike-134919

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Cassells, Associate Professor, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Curtin University

The A$130 billion $1,500-per-fortnight JobKeeper payment will benefit six million Australians for six months, with payments expected from May 1.

Eligible businesses include not-for-profits and businesses with turnovers of less than $1 billion per year whose turnover is down 30%. Businesses with turnovers of more than $1 billion per year need to have lost 50% of turnover.

Eligible workers include full-time and part-time employees and sole traders as well as permanent visa holders and several other visa categories.

Workers don’t apply on their own behalf. They go to their employers, who will apply to the Tax Office.

Read more: The key to the success of the $130 billion wage subsidy is retrospective paid work

But casual workers are eligible only if they have been with their employer for 12 months or more.

Our calculations suggest about 950,000 casual workers will be ineligible, because they have been with their most recent employer for less than 12 months, something common among casual workers.

Most are employed in the accommodation and food services, retail trade, and health care and social assistance industries. More than half are women.

Casual workers employed less than 12 months with current employer

Eligible employers will receive $1,500 per fortnight (before tax) for each eligible employee regardless of whether that employee is paid more or less than this and regardless of whether the employee is full or part-time.

Workers that are paid less than $1,500 per fortnight will receive the full $1,500 per fortnight regardless of their pay.

Most part-time workers will take home more under the $750 Job Keeper payment than they were receiving in wages from their employer.

Is it good policy?

At a projected cost of $130 billion over the next half year, it is an extraordinary commitment from the government, and a huge statement of intent to support businesses and workers.

It will help many businesses stay afloat and help many workers stay attached to their employers as we move through the crisis.

But the model adopted raises a number of questions:

1. Is it fair to full and part-time workers?

It will give a part-time worker on 15 hours per week about the same weekly wage as a full-time worker on a 35 hour week.

Employers might try to re-organise hours of work to make it fairer, but some workers might want fewer hours and others more. Regardless, many will end up with the same pay.

A capped wage subsidy model would deliver support more efficiently, but may be harder to administer and police. Every worker and every employer knows that they will get $1,500 per fortnight. Anything outside this amount will raise alarm bells.

2. How will it interact with other payments?

Many part time workers who are combining work with caring for others and/or studying also receive family payments and other means-tested government payments.

For many, the $1,500 per fortnight will cut their other payments while at the same time increasing the demands their employers for hours, where those employers are able to continue to operate.

3. What about multiple job holders?

There are currently more than one million workers in Australia who hold more than a single job. The rules state they are eligible for the JobKeeper payment in respect of only one of those jobs.

They will have to choose which job to keep their attachment to. The employers who miss out will miss out on the wage support.

4. Will it actually keep people in work?

A key aim of the JobKeeper payment is to keep people in jobs. It will certainly offer an incentive for workers to stay attached to their employer and in work, whatever form it takes.

But, some might judge their overall welfare to be better served if they receive a combination of the enhanced JobSeeker payment (formerly Newstart) and other benefits and might not seek JobKeeper.

5. Will it keep businesses afloat?

The benefit for eligible employers is that their wages will largely be covered. But this might not be enough to keep them operating if their other costs become too large. This will especially be the case for firms for which Labour is a small share of costs.

This is where other elements of the government’s support package will come into play to keep businesses afloat including those announced on March 12.

6. Will businesses change in order to become eligible?

Behavioural responses are inevitable. JobKeeper creates incentives for firms to force down turnover to get access to the payments

And it might induce firms to pay their workers the flat $1,500 per fortnight even if they can afford to pay and would ordinarily pay more – not the best outcome.

Read more: Australia’s $130 billion JobKeeper payment: what the experts think

– ref. JobKeeper payment: how will it work, who will miss out and how to get it? – https://theconversation.com/jobkeeper-payment-how-will-it-work-who-will-miss-out-and-how-to-get-it-135189

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Portolan, PhD student, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

When Tinder issued an in-app public service announcement regarding COVID-19 on March 3 we all had a little laugh as a panoply of memes and gags hit the internet.

Two weeks later the laughter has subsided, but the curiosity continues. How will singles mingle in the time of Corona?

We are entering unprecedented dating territory.

Luckily, dating apps have already taken the “face-to-face” out of many first meetings. A study conducted by YouGov and Galaxy in 2019 indicated 52% of Australian singles had used a dating app to make a romantic connection.

Usage was particularly high for single Aussies between 25 and 34, with 60% having used a dating app to make a romantic connection.

But while these people first made the connection online, for many (if not most), the connection eventually moved to real-life. So what now with social distancing?

We still want to connect …

People are still opening their dating apps.

Between March 5 and 10, OkCupid reported a 7% increase in new conversations, and at the time of writing, ten out of the top 100 apps on the iTunes store were dating apps.

During the second week of March, active users on Bumble rose by 8%. As American cities go into lockdown, apps are reporting increased numbers of messaging: on Bumble from March 12–22, Seattle saw a 23% increase in sent messages, New York City 23% and San Francisco 26%.

In a time of spatial distancing, dating apps present a solution – to boredom, for connection – and also a risk. What responsibilities do dating apps have in relation to hook-ups and meet-ups and social distancing, if any?

Dating apps continue to serve public service announcements in-app, as well as encouraging people to use their chat and video functionalities to continue exploring potential relationships.

Social media points to another interesting trend: people are changing their interaction patterns in dating apps, or dating app discussions are becoming corona-centric.

There has been a 188% increase mentions of coronavirus on OkCupid profiles in March. Indian Tinder users described a rise in longer Tinder conversations. Which made many question if COVID-19 marked the return of Jane-Austen-like-courtships?

In the Jane Austen romance world, a protracted courtship might involve a spate of love letters. Today, it’s video chats and direct messages.

To match this new phenomena, dating apps are pushing to keep the majority of the relationship in-app.

While many dating apps already had video-chat functionalities, some have tweaked the interface to make it more relevant to the current climate, re-branding video-chats as “virtual dates”.

… but with no touching

In this new world, we’re all navigating how romantic intimacy can exist without physical contact.

With the prospect of months of self-isolation how will we navigate sex? After all, not everyone has a sexual partner readily available.

A notice about sex and coronavirus from the New York City Department of Health went viral last weekend. It included the statement “You are your safest sex partner”.

The tables are suddenly turned: online hook-ups were previously framed as less wholesome than face-to-face ones. Yet in 2020 they are perceived as safer.

Simultaneously, we are seeing a steady rise in sex toy sales: sales are up 13% in the UK, 71% in Italy, and a whopping 135% in Canada. Australian sex toy brand Vush is reporting their sales are up 350%.

Connection is sought after in times of uncertainty, risk and crisis. But COVID-19 makes the navigation of these intimacies certainly difficult. We are in the middle of a historical re-jigging of our understanding of romance, intimacy and sex.

It’s safe to say the negotiation of intimacy has been irrevocably changed – even if it is only for the short while.

– ref. The safest sex you’ll never have: how coronavirus is changing online dating – https://theconversation.com/the-safest-sex-youll-never-have-how-coronavirus-is-changing-online-dating-134382

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Gibbons, Professor, Australian National University

As we witnessed last summer, the number of houses destroyed during bushfires in Australia has not been stemmed by advances in weather forecasting, building design and the increased use of large water-bombing aircraft.

At the latest count, more than 3,500 homes were destroyed the summer just gone, which makes this the most destructive bushfire season in Australia’s history.

The principal reason for the continually high rate of destruction is that so many homes are being built close to bushland. An estimated 85% of all houses destroyed in bushfires in Australia are within 100m of the bush.

It follows that clearing vegetation around houses is at the forefront of advice provided by fire authorities to homeowners in bushfire-prone areas.

A home without trees and shrubs around it is the safest option during a bushfire. But realistically, many people will want to retain some vegetation. And there are ways to do this sensibly.

Is clearing bushland the solution?

Research shows houses close to bushland are more effectively protected by clearing trees and shrubs within approximately 40m of the home.

There are laws in most states and territories, such as New South Wales’ 10/50 Vegetation Clearing Scheme, that permit this to some extent.

But if all homeowners in bushfire-prone areas exercised their right to clear trees and shrubs, places such as the Blue Mountains, Perth Hills, Mount Lofty Ranges, Dandenongs and our coastal towns like Mallacoota, Margaret River and Batemans Bay would be vastly different in character.

Read more: How a bushfire can destroy a home

Residents and tourists are attracted to these areas for the aesthetics, privacy, wildlife and shade native trees and shrubs provide.

A study of rural-residential areas north of Melbourne found property values were higher where there was a considerable cover of native vegetation. We not only like our native bush, we are prepared to pay for it.

Because many people value trees and shrubs around their homes, it is not realistic to expect uniformly low fuel loads within bushfire-prone parts of Australia.

Can we have our cake and eat it?

We analysed data collected before and after the 2009 Black Saturday Fires, in which 2,133 houses were destroyed.

We found that the extent of “greenness” of vegetation surrounding homes had a bearing on whether the structure withstood fire.

Greenness refers to the extent to which plants are actively growing. Houses with trees and shrubs within 40m were slightly less likely to be destroyed if the vegetation had relatively high values of “greenness”, as compared to houses surrounded by vegetation with low greenness value.

This makes sense because greener vegetation, typically with higher moisture content, has lower flammability, requires more energy to ignite and therefore can reduce the intensity of a fire.

Read more: Australian building codes don’t expect houses to be fire-proof – and that’s by design

Thus, watering your garden through summer, if this is feasible, or choosing plants with high moisture content (such as succulents) may reduce the bushfire risk compared with the same amount of vegetation with a lower moisture content.

We also found the risk to houses during bushfire was slightly less where trees and shrubs within 40m were not continuous, but instead arranged as discrete patches separated by a ground layer with low fuel hazard, such as mown grass.

As trees and shrubs become less continuous the heat transfer between patches becomes less efficient and the intensity of the fire is likely to decline.

Provided bushfires in your area come from a predictable direction, retaining more trees and shrubs downwind of this direction from your house poses less risk than the same cover of trees and shrubs retained upwind from your house.

This makes sense because burning embers, which are the main cause of house losses during bushfires, travel in the direction of the wind.

You can’t eliminate risk from bushfires

We must emphasise that while these strategies can strike a balance between retaining trees and shrubs and preparing for bushfires, they will not guarantee your home will survive a bushfire – especially in severe fire weather.

So in addition to vegetation management, other strategies – such as building design, adequate insurance and evacuating early to a safer place – should be considered in every household’s bushfire planning.

Read more: 12 simple ways you can reduce bushfire risk to older homes

– ref. If you’re worried about bushfires but want to keep your leafy garden, follow these tips – https://theconversation.com/if-youre-worried-about-bushfires-but-want-to-keep-your-leafy-garden-follow-these-tips-130876

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Menzies, Principal Research Fellow, Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith University

Crises pose particular challenges for democratic leaders. They are expected to make critical decisions in times of uncertainty and rapidly develop effective plans to lead us out of the crisis. Normally, we are more interested in constraining our leaders through the checks and balances of accountability. But in times of crisis, we look to our leaders to lead. Finding the right balance between accountability and rapid decision-making remains a challenge during an era of reduced trust in political leaders.

In Australia, the establishment of the national cabinet has undertaken this crisis leadership role.

The national cabinet comprises the prime minister and all state and territory premiers and chief ministers. Basically, it is COAG by another name.

Read more: ‘Where no counsel is, the people fall’: why parliaments should keep functioning during the coronavirus crisis

Though called a cabinet, the national cabinet is technically an intergovernmental forum. The conventions and rules of cabinet, such as cabinet solidarity and the secrecy provisions, do not apply to the national cabinet.

Its power is that which the leaders of all Australian jurisdictions bring to negotiate on behalf of their people, and to implement the decisions reached. This model is called executive federalism.

Advantages of executive federalism in a time of crisis

In a crisis, decision-making automatically shifts upwards with the expectation that leaders will work together to find a way through the crisis. The National Cabinet meets these expectations in several ways.

Timeliness and risk

Response time is critical, and with the national cabinet meeting multiple times a week, issues can be addressed as they emerge. Risk is reduced by bringing together technical and political experts.

The national cabinet is supported by the chief medical officers, who meet as the Australian Health Protection and Principles Committee (AHPPC). They pull together the modelling, research and data that form the basis of decisions made by the national cabinet.

Read more: View from The Hill: A contest of credible views should be seen as useful in a national crisis

The national cabinet is the mechanism to bring together information and intelligence sharing, and the capacity to pool and test ideas before locking in coordination and jurisdictional capacity.

Because of the frequency of meetings, decisions are expected and made. The consideration of different jurisdictional viewpoints and expertise puts rigour and contestability into the decision-making and strengthens the outcome.

Clarity and coherence

In a time of national crisis, agreement on a plan of action and then rapid and effective implementation is crucial. The national cabinet brings that focus. By putting aside their “politics as usual” squabbles the leaders demonstrate their desire for agreement and unity and communicate that firmness of purpose to the community at large.

Though the search for unity can be overborne by local circumstances. Some states moved earlier to introduce restrictions and shutdowns outside of the national cabinet. Though criticised for breaking ranks, the premiers were reacting to the different circumstances and anxiety within their jurisdiction. They decided to trade off the perception of a loss of unity against the need to create local responses for local circumstances.

Dual democracy

The national cabinet helps reconcile the dual allegiances citizens have to the national government and their state or territory government. People are looking for a coherent national approach through the crisis, but they do not want to see their individual jurisdiction to be disadvantaged compared to the rest of the country. At the national cabinet, the smaller states have equal representation, whereas in parliament their representation is proportionate to their population size.

Is it anti-democratic?

Executive federalism forums such as the national cabinet can be criticised for being undemocratic and unaccountable, with the role of the parliament marginalised. However, these forums are undertaking different roles. The national cabinet deals with negotiation and compromise between states, which recognise difference and diversity. The parliament is about majority will.

The connection has not been lost with parliament, which is suspended not pro-rogued, and will be brought back to pass legislation from decisions made by the national cabinet.

Once the COVID-19 crisis has passed, the full democratic accountability processes can scrutinise the decisions taken. This includes parliamentary committee investigations and royal commissions. The checks and balances of the democratic constraints on our leaders will reassert themselves.

– ref. Explainer: what is the national cabinet and is it democratic? – https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-national-cabinet-and-is-it-democratic-135036

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Mortimer, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Queensland University of Technology

The Morrison government keeps using the word “essential” to describe employees, public gatherings, services and businesses that are still allowed and not restricted as it tries to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

But what is essential, and who gets to decide?

By its very definition, essential means “something necessary, indispensable, or unavoidable”.

Read more: Australia’s $130 billion JobKeeper payment: what the experts think

When it comes to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, there are no recent precedents for governments. There is no pre-determined list in place on what is an essential service. Instead, “essential” appears a moving beast that is constantly evolving and that can be confusing.

Confused messages

On March 22 the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews called for “a shutdown of all non-essential activity” within 48 hours. Supermarkets, banks and pharmacies were some of the things he said were essential but he did not provide an exhaustive list of what was considered an essential service.

Naturally confusion reigned. For example, in the rural Victorian town of Ballan, some stores closed while others remained open.

We’ve now seen a number of retailers decide to voluntarily shutter stores for the safety of their workers and the public, considering their businesses “non-essential”.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a meeting of the national cabinet had agreed to a raft of new restrictions, such as limiting “shopping for what you need, food and other essential supplies”.

But he also described his wife’s recent purchase of a number of jigsaw puzzles for the family as “absolutely essential”. While toy and hobby retailers may find comfort in this statement, in reality such businesses may not be considered “essential”.

Guns and pastries, essential?

There are differences too overseas in what people consider essential as part of any COVID-19 restrictions.

Is the United States, it’s recommended employees of gun stores and gun manufacturers should be seen as “essential” workers, according to a memo from the Department of Homeland Security.

While in Europe, “necessities” are said to include Belgian Fries, French Baguettes and Dutch Cannabis. In France, it’s also shops specialising in pastries, wine and cheese reportedly declared essential businesses.

In Ireland, reports say the government there has issued a detailed list of what it considers “essential workers”. As for essential retailers, they include pharmacies, fuel stations and pet stores, but not opticians, motor repair and bicycle repair outlets.

The essential essentials

Here in Australia there is broad agreement supermarkets, service stations, allied health (pharmacy, chiropractic, physiotherapy, psychology, dental) and banks are essential business and services.

Similarly freight, logistics and home delivery are also considered essential. Australia Post says posties and delivery drivers continue but some posts offices are temporarily closed.

Some bottle shops can stay open but many are now imposing restrictions on how much people can buy.

The government has moved to progressively add more business, services and activities to its “non-essential services” list.

This includes cafés, food courts, pubs, licensed clubs (sports clubs), bars, beauty and personal care services, entertainment venues, leisure and recreation (gyms, theme parks), galleries, museums and libraries.

Some of these entities do have exceptions. A café can remain open for take-away only. A hairdresser or barber can trade if they comply with the one person per four square-metre rule.

Others remain convoluted, such as outdoor and indoor markets (farmers markets), which are a decision for each state and territory.

In and out of work

In reality, no worker should ever be considered, or consider themselves, as “non-essential”.

But due to how the restrictions have been broadly applied, some workers in one industry may now find themselves out of a job, while others in that same industry remain fully employed.

Read more: $1,500 a fortnight JobKeeper wage subsidy in massive $130 billion program

Take for example chefs. Due to bans on restaurants and licensed clubs, chefs there are being stood down, but chefs inside hotels can continue to cook and provide room service meals.

A barista in a café can still be gainfully employed, as long as they only make take-away coffee, but a barista inside a licensed sports club, is unfortunately stood down.

Further restrictions and essentials

While we have seen many businesses reduce their operations and several retailers voluntarily close their doors, many are standing by waiting for further announcements to potentially close all “non-essential” services.

What should the government consider before deciding what is and isn’t regarded as essential?

Read more: In the time of coronavirus, donating blood is more essential than ever

Some decisions are easy: we need health workers, police, fire fighters and other emergency services workers, and we need those who maintain services to the public such as food supply, clean water, sewerage and so on.

But we also need those services required to keep these people functioning. The military describe this as tooth to tail ratio: the number of people required to keep any soldier on the battlefield (estimated up to three for every soldier).

In the civilian context this includes those responsible for the supply of consumables, personal protection equipment, transport, power, fuel, computer systems, and someone to look after their families while they do the heavy lifting.

– ref. What actually are ‘essential services’ and who decides? – https://theconversation.com/what-actually-are-essential-services-and-who-decides-135029

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aude Bernard, Lecturer, Queensland Centre for Population Research, The University of Queensland

Australians are among the most mobile populations in the world. More than 40% of us change address every five years, about twice the global average. Yet the level of internal migration – moving within Australia – has gone down over the past four decades.

The proportion of Australians changing state of residence fell by 20% between 1981 and 2016, particularly after 1991. Their movement between regions within states – between, say, Brisbane and Mackay – dropped by a whopping 25%.

The decline in migration is a feature of a number of advanced economies, including the United States. Policymakers have been concerned this trend heralds a less flexible economy where workers do not move to regions with jobs. If that’s the case, it could prolong recessions and reduce growth.

So why are Australians moving less? Several factors might help explain it.

Australia is getting older

Population ageing is one of the main explanations because older people move less than young people. It’s enough to account for 20-30% of the decline in internal migration in Australia.

However, the increase in the share of mobile groups – such as renters, tertiary-educated people and recently arrived immigrants – has fully compensated the downward effect of population ageing. This means the net effect on migration levels of changes in the composition of the Australian population is close to null.

So the decline is not the result of overall changes in population composition. It is the result of deeper behavioural changes. People in their 20s, 30s and 40s are simply moving less today than in the past.

Working arrangements have changed

Information and communication technology and the changes in working arrangements brought by the internet are often thought to have contributed to lower migration levels. But, the proportion of individuals who telework remains small. Only 5% of the Australian workforce worked from home at the 2016 census.

Perhaps more significant is the increase in dual-income households. They now account for two-thirds of couples compared with 56% in 2001. Because these couples find it more challenging to jointly relocate than traditional male-breadwinner families, this shift explains about 10% of the decline in interstate migration in Australia.

Despite these transformations, the mix of reasons for moving hasn’t changed over the past 15 years. Australians still move mainly for family and work reasons.

So, what is going on?

Place attachment plays a part

In the United States, this downward trend has been linked to “rootedness”, the idea that individuals have become more attached their families and communities and are therefore less inclined to relocate.

Such concepts are difficult to measure and quantify. Yet a 2019 study showed that Australians with strong place attachment and social networks are less likely to migrate, particularly over long distances. But it is not clear how place attachment has changed over time and whether it has contributed to the decline in internal migration.

Young people are staying put

We know young people are moving less than they used to. In 2017, 56% of Australians below the age of 30 were still living at home compared with 47% in 2001. Explanations for this trend include increasing housing costs and delayed union formation.

The consequences not only bring down current migration levels but also in the future. This is because migration is self-reinforcing: having moved in the past increases the chances of moving again. So, young adults who are staying put now are less likely to move later because they have not been exposed early in life to the challenges of relocating.

This means the level of migration in Australia is likely to remain low, but this downward trend may level off as we have seen in the United States.

Is this new low a problem?

There is no evidence Australians are less willing to relocate for their jobs, so this downward trend should not have major impacts on the economy.

What is more concerning is some groups have been affected more than others, particularly those in part-time work and in low-paid sectors such as retail and trade. These workers are less mobile than in the past and their share in the workforce has increased.

Individuals with limited resources face greater difficulties in being mobile, particularly when faced with rising housing costs and stagnant wages. We need to ensure Australia does not evolve toward a two-tier migration system, in which some can afford to move and others are “trapped”. This could, in the long term, reinforce socio-economic inequalities.

– ref. Australians are moving home less. Why? And does it matter? – https://theconversation.com/australians-are-moving-home-less-why-and-does-it-matter-133767

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Stubbs, Senior Lecturer, School of Creative Industries, University of South Australia

Being in isolation might be a great time to try something new. In this series, we get the basics on hobbies and activities to start while you’re spending more time at home.

While many are cancelling treks to Nepal, putting dreams of Venice on hold and wondering what we can substitute for a tropical beach escape, it is worth remembering we’re not the first who have had to rethink the notion of travel.

There is a precedent for thinking about journeys in a more imaginative sense: travel and the near-at-hand.

Vertical travel and travel writing – where we immerse in the spaces around us in greater detail, peeling back layers of history, botany and culture – goes back to the late 18th Century in Turin and a man named Xavier de Maistre.

De Maistre wrote A Journey Around My Room while imprisoned in his bedroom for six weeks after he was caught fighting a duel in the north Italian city in 1790.

Rather than sulk through his imprisonment, he decided to challenge the popularity of imperialist travel writing and he wrote a travel book about the contents of his bedroom. De Maistre observed his surroundings, detaching and looking with new eyes to give the reader an alternative perspective on what travel could mean:

What a comfort this new mode will be to the sick; they need not fear bleak winds or change of weather. And what a thing, too, it will be for cowards; they will be safe from pitfalls and quagmires. Thousands who hitherto did not dare, others who were not able, and others to whom it never occurred to think of such a thing as going on a journey, will make up their minds to follow my example.

De Maistre’s room became a place with latitude and topography.

He immersed in the scenes of the paintings on his walls and saw his bed as a vehicle for imaginative transportation alongside his dog, Rose, his trusted travel companion. De Maistre was so taken by the journey that he subsequently wrote A Nocturnal Expedition Around My Room to “revisit the country which I had formerly so delightfully travelled through”.

Writing of a microcosm

There were many inspired by this new style. Heinrich Seidel refocused his apartment into a microcosm where each item had a history and an interconnected story. Similarly, Alphonse Karr produced two volumes and 700 pages focused solely on his garden where he lived in Montmartre with his pet monkey Emmanuel.

In Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854), the author lived alone and in seclusion in a log cabin at Walden Pond; George Orwell meticulously captured the intricate details of weather, vegetable production and an egg count in his domestic diary from the early 1940s.

Read more: Why philosophy is an ideal travel companion for adventurous minds

This notion of rethinking space and valuing the mundane as an ethical and creative choice acts as a counter to the assumed importance of distance with many travel(ling) writers of the era.

This has not diminished in the modern era.

In Isolarion: A Different Oxford Journey (2007), James Attlee extends the notion of close travel or “home-touring” as he walks along a solitary Oxford street.

A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (2009) sees Alain de Botton at a desk in the departure hall of London Heathrow’s Terminal 5, confined for the duration of his stay, to understand the airport both as a destination in itself and as a location with a distinct culture.

Meg Watson’s essay Another life in Paris for The Saturday Paper focuses on her experience inhabiting another person’s space as an Airbnb guest in Paris:

On my first night in Canelle’s bed, I watch Midnight in Paris and drink rosé from one of her stained teacups. In a classic display of unabashed French nonchalance, the bedroom door is nothing but a clear panel of glass.

Within the intimacy of the apartment, Watson shows the reader a closer and more nuanced perspective of Paris. Simultaneously, the voyeurism of this approach also allows the reader to appreciate the sameness of many travel experiences.

Tips for your own close travel

Look intimately

Take a closer look at the items around your house.

Especially if you have things from previous travels, take the time to reflect on the item’s journey, write its story, or look through the photos of that period– it might even involve some research of your own, discovering what the pattern on your Moroccan mirror means, or the significance of the Easter Island statues on your bookshelf.

Smell deeply

Stroll through your garden. Take a closer look at all the plants, the soil and the trees. Look closer again.

By sifting through my own soil I discovered shards of 100-year-old-bricks which prompted my journey towards a better understanding of the history of my state.

Remember the outside world

Look out your window. Just as many have in Wuhan, Barcelona and Rome, conversations with new encounters, impromptu music performances and shared meals and experiences (even over a fence or across a road) are much of what we search for in conventional travel.

This new dimension can bring surprising togetherness.

– ref. Great first time to try: travel writing from the home – https://theconversation.com/great-first-time-to-try-travel-writing-from-the-home-134664